The King Without a Kingdom

Having set up the ambush like a highway brigand, this is how he portrayed himself, wearing the gloves of a knight.

And most importantly he wrote to the Duke of Lancaster, who was to be found in Malines, and also to the King of England himself. We got wind of these letters when things began to turn sour. The Bad One certainly didn’t beat about the bush. ‘If you summon your captains in Brittany to ready themselves, as soon as I send for them, to enter in Normandy, I will grant them good and sure passage. You should know, dearest cousin, that all the nobles of Normandy are with me in death as in life.’ With the murder of Monsieur of Spain, our man had chosen rebellion; now he was moving towards treason. But at the same time, he cast upon King John the Ladies of Melun.

You don’t know whom we mean by that name? Ah! It’s raining. It was to be expected; this rain has been threatening us from the outset. Now you will bless my palanquin, Archambaud, rather than having water running down your neck, beneath your coathardy, and mud caking you to the waist …

The Ladies of Melun? They are the two queens dowager, and Joan of Valois, Charles’s child-bride, who is awaiting puberty. All three live in the Castle of Melun, that is called the Castle of the Three Queens, or even the Widows’ Court.

First of all there is Madame Joan of Évreux, King Charles IV’s widow and aunt to our Bad One. Yes, yes, she is still alive; she isn’t at all as old as one would think. She is barely a day over fifty; she is four or five years younger than me. She has been a widow for twenty-eight years already, twenty-eight years of wearing white. She shared the throne just three years. But she has remained an influence in the kingdom. She is the most senior, the very last queen of the great Capetian dynasty. Yes, of the three confinements she went through … three girls, of which only one, the one birthed after the king’s death, is still living … had she given birth to a boy, she would have been queen mother and regent. The dynasty came to an end in her womb. When she says: ‘Monseigneur of Évreux, my father … my uncle Philip the Fair … my brother-in-law Philip the Tall …’ a hush descends. She is the survivor of an undisputed monarchy, and of a time when France was infinitely more powerful and glorious than today. She is guarantor for the new breed. So, there are things that are not done because Madame of Évreux would disapprove of them.

In addition to this, it is said around her: ‘She is a saint.’ You have to admit that it doesn’t take much when one is queen, to be looked upon as a saint by a small and idle court where singing others’ praises passes as an occupation. Madame Joan of Évreux gets up before dawn; she lights her candle herself so as not to disturb her ladies-in-waiting. Then she begins to read her book of hours, the smallest in the world so we are led to believe, a gift from her husband who had commissioned it from a master limner,21 Jean Pucelle. She spends much time in prayer and regularly gives alms. She has spent twenty-eight years repeating that, as she had been unable to give birth to a son, she had no future. Widows live on obsessions. She could have carried more weight in the kingdom if she had been blessed with intelligence in proportion to her virtue.

Then there is Madame Blanche, Charles of Navarre’s sister, second wife of Philip VI, a queen for just six months, barely time enough to get accustomed to wearing a crown. She has the reputation of being the most beautiful woman of the kingdom. I saw her, not long ago, and can willingly confirm this judgement. She is now twenty-four, and for the last six years has been wondering what the whiteness of her skin, her enamel eyes and her perfect body are all for. Had nature endowed her with a less splendid appearance, she would be queen now, since she was intended for King John! The father only took her for himself because he was transfixed by her beauty.

Not long after she had accompanied her husband’s body to the grave that was prepared, she was proposed to by the King of Castile, Don Pedro, whose subjects had named the Cruel. She responded, rather hastily perhaps, that: ‘A Queen of France does not remarry.’ She was much praised for this display of grandeur. But she wonders to this day if it is not too great a sacrifice she has made for the sake of her title and whatever rights she still has to her former magnificence. The domain of Melun is her dower. She has made many improvements to it, but she can well change the carpets and tapestries that make up her bedroom at Christmas and Easter; she will always sleep there alone.

Finally, there is the other Joan, King John’s daughter, whose marriage had the effect of bringing on only storms. Charles of Navarre entrusted her to his aunt and his sister, until she was of an age to consummate the bond. That Joan is a little minx, as a girl of twelve can be, who remembers being a widow at six, and who knows herself to be queen without yet being powerful, for the while. She has nothing else to do but wait until she grows up, when she will be taking up the role; and she sorely lacks patience, baulking at everything she is commanded to do, demanding everything that is refused her, harrying her handmaidens to their wits’ end, promising them a thousand torments on the day of her puberty. Madame of Évreux, who does not take bad behaviour lightly, has often had to slap her face.

Our three ladies maintain in Melun and in Meaux … Meaux is the dower of Madame of Évreux … a semblance of a court. They have a chancellor, treasurer, master of the household. Most lofty titles for such reduced functions. One is often surprised to find there people that were thought dead by all but themselves, so forgotten were they. Ageing servants, survivors from former reigns, old confessors of late kings, secretaries, keepers of secrets all too well known, men who had felt powerful for a moment when they were so close to power; now they trudge through their memories, attributing importance to themselves for having taken part in events which no longer have the slightest importance. When one of them begins: ‘The day the king told me …’ you have to guess which king he is talking about, amongst the six that have occupied the throne since the turn of the century. And what the king said is ordinarily some grave and memorable confidence like: ‘What fine weather we are having today, Gros-Pierre …’

Therefore it is almost a godsend when a dramatic affair occurs such as that of the King of Navarre’s imprisonment, the Widows’ Court is suddenly awoken from its slumber. The hour arrives for everyone to rouse, murmur, bustle and stir … We should add that for the three queens, Monseigneur of Navarre, amongst all the living, is uppermost in their thoughts. He is the beloved nephew, the cherished brother, the adored husband. No matter that in Navarre they call him the Bad! Incidentally, he does everything he can to stay in their good graces, visiting them often, showering them with presents … at least, he did before he was walled up … cheering them with his tales, speaking to them of his troubles, fascinating them with his ventures, charming as he can be, playing the respectful young man with his aunt, the affectionate equal with his sister, the man in love with his little girl of a wife, and all out of calculated self-interest; to keep them like pawns on his chessboard.

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