The Conquering Family

Thomas B. Costain

• Publisher: Papamoa Press
• Year: 2018
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781789121346
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

A vast and brilliant panorama of love and intrigue, passion and power—told by Costain, the incomparable storyteller at his best. Here is the drama of the men and women of one powerful family who sought to sweep the whole world before them...
"BRILLIANT...SWIFT-MOVING...FULL OF ACTION, RICH IN COLOR"—Henry Seidel Canby, Book-of-the-Month Club News
"To this Costain has brought all the skill of a prime storyteller. He riots amid the actual happenings in perhaps the most richly dramatic and romantic country we know...A thrilling narrative...history told with all the interest found only in a great novel."—Salt Lake City Tribune
"Crowded with epochal events and grandly heroic personalities...much bloodshed and battle and violence and suffering...lively, fascinating"—Orville Prescott, New York Times
"The glorious pageant of England...the most exciting of all stories."—Christian Herald

 

CHAPTER I — Where the Planta Genesta Grows

The Angevin country begins between Normandy and Brittany and continues down through Maine and Anjou. In the Middle Ages this fair and romantic land was dotted with towns and castles of great interest and importance. Here were the castles of Chinon, stretching like a walled city along a high ridge, here was Angers with its many-towered and impregnable castle, here also the famed abbey of Fontevrault where many great figures of English history are buried. Here in the spring and early summer the hedges and fields were yellow with a species of gorse (it still grows in profusion) called the planta genesta. It was in an early year of the twelfth century that a handsome young man named Geoffrey, son of the Count of Anjou, fell into the habit of wearing a sprig of the yellow bloom in his helmet. This may be called the first stage in the history of the conquering family who came to govern England, and who are called the Plantagenets.

The Angevin country had been ruled through the Dark Ages by a turbulent, ambitious, violent, and brave family. Strange stories are told about these ancestors of the English kings. The men were warriors who held the belief that forgiveness could be bought for all their wicked deeds, with the result that they were active Crusaders (one of them becoming King of Jerusalem) and they donated many beautiful chapels and shrines to the Church. Some of the women were quite as violent as their husbands but all of them seem to have been beautiful. There was, for example, the forest maiden Melusine who married Raymond de Lusignan, the head of one of the great Angevin families, after getting his promise that he would never see her on Saturdays. It was a happy marriage until the husband’s curiosity led him to hide himself in her boudoir. He found then, to his horror, that from the waist down she had taken on the form of a blue and white serpent. The wife died as a result of this revelation but her spirit continued to haunt the Lusignan castle, causing much fear by the sound of her swishing tail. There was another called the witch-countess who was forced to go to mass by four of her husband’s knights and who vanished into thin air at the Consecration, leaving them all holding corners of her outer robe, from which came a strong odor of brimstone. Finally there was Bertrade, the supremely beautiful but disdainfully wicked countess who ran away to live with the French king in what was called, even in those dissolute days, a life of sin.

The counts of Anjou and their lovely but wicked wives gained such an unsavory reputation over the centuries that the people of England were appalled when they found that one of them was to become King of England. This was young Henry, the grandson of England’s Henry I and of the Count of Anjou, and there was much angry muttering and shaking of heads. But the half of young Henry which was English predominated over the half which was Angevin. He proved a strong and able king and, although some who followed him displayed more of the wild and picturesque half of their blood inheritance, the days of their rule in England were fruitful and spectacular. The men were kingly and their women were lovely. They created an empire and they fought long and terrible wars and enriched the island with the booty they brought back. The English people were so proud of them that they after forgave their wickednesses and their peccadilloes.

2

It was low country, much of it lying in the valley of the imposing Loire, and the land was fertile. It followed that the natives devoted themselves largely to agriculture. They raised crops of wheat and rye and oats, and on all the little streams running in all directions the stones of the millers ground out fine flour. The fields where the planta genesta grew were good for pasture, and the cattle which browsed there were fat and the horses had good bones and glossy coats. The knights of France depended much on the Angevin fields for the chargers they rode into battle. Some vineyards covered the hillsides and excellent light wines were produced.

While the nobility wrangled and fought and led forays into each other’s territory, and committed all manner of barbarities, the stolid peasants went on plowing their land and tending their stock, and paid as little attention as possible to the menacing activities of the gentry. Ironically enough, it was not until the Counts of Anjou removed themselves to England to reign there as the Plantagenets that the stout peasantry found their land torn by family strife and the march of conquering armies.

 

In the Angevin provinces of France today there is little memory left of those stirring days. The name Plantagenet does not stir any recognition, although a nod can sometimes be won with the mention of Richard Cœur-de-Lion. The long stretch of Chinon’s walls is still to be seen and it is sometimes possible to find a guide who will lead the way to a spot in a tiny chapel where great Henry II died. The merest glimpse may be had because of the ruined walls and the high weeds, in which might lurk serpents with blue and white tails. Mirabeau is a rather quiet town with nothing left of the castle where that wise old harridan, Eleanor of Aquitaine, held out against Arthur and his Breton forces until her blackavised and black-hearted son John came to her rescue. It was at Mirabeau that the unfortunate Arthur was captured and carried off into the dark captivity from which he never emerged. Chaluz is too far away for any recollection to continue of the random arrow which took the life of the lionhearted Richard. Poitiers is so far south, and the victory that the Black Prince won there was so humiliating to the French, that all memories of it have gone with the fleeting winds.

But every mile of this rather humid and pleasant countryside, and every twist of the narrow roads where horse-drawn carts are still more often seen than touring motor cars, invoke memories for those who want to refresh their knowledge of the first years of that fascinating family known as the Plantagenets.

CHAPTER II — The Long Years of Civil War

Henry I of England, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, became a saddened man when his only son was drowned in the wreck of La Blanche Nef off the Norman coast. He had no appetite, he sat alone and stared at nothing, his temper was so fitful that the people of the court tried to keep out of his way, he did not pay any attention even to affairs of state, which was the surest indication of the mental condition into which this most painstaking of rulers had fallen. His chief minister, Roger of Salisbury, began to take it upon himself to govern and to issue writs “on the King’s part and my own.” This was too much for the rest of the royal entourage, who, of course, hated Roger. A concerted effort was made to bring the sorrowing man back to an interest in life, and he was finally persuaded, much against his will, to marry again in the hope of having a male heir to take the place of his lost William.

The wife selected for him was Adelicia, daughter of the Count of Louvain, an eighteen-year-old girl of such beauty that she was called the Fair Maid of Brabant. Rhyming Robert of Gloucester said of her, “no woman so fair as she was seen on middle earth.” Adelicia was gentle and understanding and she strove to be a good wife to the melancholy Henry, but she failed in the most important respect: she did not bear him children. The situation looked hopeless until the King’s last remaining legitimate child, the Empress Matilda, was left a widow by her aged husband and returned to England.

Henry’s interest in affairs of state revived in earnest with the arrival of his daughter. He proceeded with the vigor of his younger days to insure her succession to the throne, calling another parliament and demanding that her right be acknowledged by all. He had one precedent to quote in support of his claims. Serburge, the wife of Cenwalch, King of the West Saxons, had been chosen to succeed that monarch. This had happened a long time before, and Queen Serburge had reigned for one year only, after which the nobility had expelled her, not being able to stand any longer the humiliation of taking orders from a woman. If he had wanted to go back to Celtic days he could, of course, have mentioned Boadicea of immortal memory, but it is doubtful if he had ever heard of that spirited ruler. Support of this kind was not needed, however, for the assembled nobility decided unanimously in favor of Matilda. The first to take the oath was Stephen of Blois, son of Adele, the Conqueror’s fourth daughter.

Stephen was said to be the handsomest man in Europe. He was, at any rate, tall and striking-looking and debonair. There must have been tension in the air when he knelt before the young woman of twenty-four who had been an empress and pressed on her white hand the kiss of fealty.

The old Lion of Justice (this name for Henry came from some garbled nonsense of Merlin’s) lived for fifteen years after he married the Fair Maid of Brabant. He became less active and developed a liking for the mild pleasure of processionals about his domain. His radiantly lovely wife was always by his side, but the royal countenance remained as unsmiling as in the days following the death of his son and the end of all his hopes. He won another, and final, campaign in France and allowed himself an act of retaliation which seems more in keeping with the character of his father. A bard named Luke de Barré, who had once been on friendly terms with the English King, fought on the French side and was indiscreet enough to sing some ballads which held Henry up to ridicule. The unfortunate bard was captured, and Henry ordered that his eyes be burned out. The victim, who had always been a gay fellow with a great zest for life, struggled with the executioner when he was led out at Rouen and sustained such bad internal burns that he died of them. Perhaps the monarch felt some remorse, for he began after that to complain of bad dreams. In his sleep angry peasants swarmed about him, and sometimes knights who threatened his life. These nightmares became so bad that he would spring out of bed, seize a sword, and slash about him in the darkness, shouting at the top of his voice.

2

Matilda brought back three things from Germany: the richly jeweled crown she had worn, the sword of Tristan, and the most imperious temper that ever plunged a nation into conflict. Picture the long White-Hall at Westminster crowded with the people of the court waiting to see her, the men in their most be-banded and embroidered tunics; the ladies, with their hair hanging down over each shoulder in front in tight silk cases, and their sleeves so long that the tips almost swept the floor; the old King in his short black tunic and tight-fitting black hose over legs which were showing a tendency to shrivel, a massive’ gold chain around his neck at the end of which dangled a ruby worth a king’s ransom, sitting on his low throne chair and staring straight ahead of him with unseeing eyes and causing one of the long and intensely uncomfortable spells of complete silence which his courtiers had to suffer through. The first glimpse of her was most enticing: a fine-looking woman, truly regal, rather tall and graceful and with a way of carrying her head up which was an indication of her character, eyes dark and with a light in them, skin white.

She was displaying a’ garment which had come into an amazing popularity on the Continent but which was still new to English eyes, a silken sort of coat worn over her rich ceremonial gown. It had short sleeves and fell almost to the knees. Drawn in tightly at the waist, it flared out with such a gay effect that every woman there possessed one of them as soon as the nimble fingers of a lady’s maid could cut and snip and sew it together. This new garment was a pelisse, and it was perhaps the first important style departure of those early days. Matilda’s would be in one of the new colors she introduced to a country which had used only reds and blues and greens; violet, perhaps, or gold or rose madder; whichever it was, a shade to set off best her fine dark hair.

She met at White-Hall, of course, and for the first time, Stephen of Blois. How well he looked, this tall cousin, in his wine-colored cloak over tunic of silver cloth, his gray leather shoes fitting him tightly to the rounded portion of his handsome calves and then turning over to show lining of the same rich red of the cloak!

In the weeks which followed, the Empress saw many things which did not please her at all. The first glimpses of her father’s household had been disillusioning to the proud widow who had presided over the most brilliant court in the known world and in the Eternal City itself. She was puzzled to see groups of men standing about in the anterooms, common men who wore dull-colored tunics and some of whom had even allowed their yellow hair to grow so long that it hung down over their shoulders like an untidy woman’s. These ill-bred clods surrounded the King whenever he appeared and actually seemed to dispute with him. Were these uncouth fellows Saxons? Could this be the race from which her own lovely mother had come?

She was puzzled also that no commotion was created when that silent man, her father, entered or strolled down one of the royal corridors. When she, the Empress Matilda, had walked into or out of a room there had been court functionaries to carry four high-arched iron candlesticks in front of her, the lights flaring and flickering with the motion and the drafts, and a seneschal in the lead intoning, “Her Supreme and Excellent Lady and Most Royal Highness!”

Particularly disconcerting was the fact that the aging but still impatient Henry wanted church services hurried so he would not have to spend much time in chapel. His daughter remembered how this had hurt her devout mother and what talk there had been when the King had made a certain Roger le Poer his own royal chaplain because that clever rogue knew enough to keep his exhortations short. Could it be that the aging and corpulent ecclesiastic who was now jumbling the Latin phrases and wheezing in his haste was the self-same Roger? She was horrified to find that it was and that he now filled as well the high post of chancellor. She thought of the great cathedrals of Germany and Rome where the Gregorian chants, intoned by hidden choirs of trained singers, made her flesh tingle with delight, and of mighty chords crashing about her ears from the bronze pipes of the organs.

It was not long before London was dumfounded to learn that the Empress, after this triumphant return to her father’s court, had retired from the public eye. She had withdrawn herself into the household of Queen Adelicia in the Cotton-Hall at Westminster and was not seeing anyone. Tongues clacked furiously, and a score of reasons were advanced for this strange state of affairs. It is doubtful if anyone guessed the exact truth.

The real reason was that the ex-Empress was refusing, emphatically and passionately, to concur in the marriage with Geoffrey of Anjou on which Henry had decided, the young man who had fallen into the habit of wearing the planta genesta in his hat. She had many good reasons for objecting to this match. She had been an empress and for eleven years had outranked all the queens of Europe. Must she now marry a mere count, a descendant, moreover, of some wild creature of the woods called Tortulf? Geoffrey, apart from his comparatively humble station, was thoroughly unsuitable in her eyes. He was a youth of fifteen years, and it could be assumed that his interests had not yet risen much above the horse and dog and brawling stage. What kind of husband would this adolescent ignoramus make for an accomplished woman of twenty-five?

She remained in seclusion for several months, and during that time there were many violent discussions between father and daughter, and much raising of voices and protesting of vows and stamping of feet. The Empress seems to have continued, however, on the friendliest of terms with Adelicia, although it would have been hard to find two natures more diverse. The beautiful and gentle Queen entertained a real affection for her dark and willful stepdaughter, who was practically her own age. How the Empress occupied herself during the long days and interminable weeks is difficult to guess. Adelicia was given to fine needlework, and it was the custom of her ladies to gather about her each day in the sunniest apartment of Cotton-Hall and assist her in this work. This was an activity in which the restless Empress could not have played much part.

How the artful King succeeded in winning her over is not known. Behind the gloomy eye an agile and crafty mind was still at work. He was hard to resist long, this devious tactician who had found means of getting his own way all the years of his life. Somehow the daughter was persu...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• AN EXPLANATION
• CHAPTER I - Where the Planta Genesta Grows
• CHAPTER II - The Long Years of Civil War
• CHAPTER III - The Epic Reign of a Great King
• CHAPTER IV - The King and the Archbishop
• CHAPTER V - The Invasion of Ireland
• CHAPTER VI - The Sin of Absalom
• CHAPTER VII - The Milch Cow of the Third Crusade
• CHAPTER VIII - The Lord of the Manor and the Villein
• CHAPTER IX - Melech-Ric
• CHAPTER X - While the Devil Was Loose
• CHAPTER XI - The Unsolved Mystery
• CHAPTER XII - John Softsword
• CHAPTER XIII - With Bell, Book, and Candle
• CHAPTER XIV - Magna Charta
• CHAPTER XV - Twilight of a Tyrant
• CHAPTER XVI - A Nation Again
• REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER