I jacqueline, p.21
I, Jacqueline, page 21
The leader of the Estates rose at once; and it was that same man who had looked at me with kindness, promising that the oath with Brabant should be broken; but there was no kindness in him now.
‘Madam,’ he answered, ‘we are not strong enough to protect you. We cannot, it seems, protect ourselves, even, from those men my Lord of Gloucester left behind!’
At this there was a great stamping and a crying out that the handful my husband had left behind meant to murder them. Death! Death! They shouted the word again and again, and would not be quieted until the leader held up his hand and gave his orders. And at his words my heart shrivelled and the sickness came up into my throat.
All my husband’s men were to be seized—both common men and captains. And all of them, to the full number of two hundred, to be hanged at once. But by God’s mercy some of them escaped.
But one did not escape for he had come with me, to be my bodyguard—Macart, my husband’s faithful servant; and one that, for all his quick temper, had not lifted a hand against any man since Gloucester left. But they seized him where he stood at my side and they took him away and beheaded him in the courtyard, and no prayer for his soul.
And that is the thing that makes me cry out in my dreams. For I left the Council chamber and there in the courtyard his headless body lay in blood; and the executioner was holding the head aloft … and there was a surprised look in the dead eyes. And the blood spurted and fell upon my hand; and it was as though I, myself, had murdered him. I have seen men die in battle; and I have been myself prepared to die, fighting. But to seize a man that has done no wrong and, in cold blood, take off his head—and no prayer for his soul—it is a thing that must haunt me to my own dying.
Nor was this all.
Sickened by the faithlessness and the hatred, heaving at the smell of blood and the sight of death, I made my way back as best I could to find my apartments empty, save for the women. The officers of my household had been arrested—every man they could lay hands upon, peaceful men that went quiet about their business.
My Hainaulters had done this, my Hainaulters that had sworn to cherish me. They had murdered good men whose only fault was friendship to me; and others they had carried away. They had left me friendless. They darkened my world that day.
And now in my dire peril my thoughts flew to Gloucester—my last hope. Love me he might not; but he was still my husband. Both as husband and soldier his faith was pledged. I had, by God’s mercy, a messenger. In all the horror of this day there had been one stroke of luck. Louis de Montfort had been absent; he had returned after the ransackers had left; even now he lay hidden in my chamber. I would send him with my letter.
I remember how I sat, head between my hands, wondering what I must write; and how, every now and then, the bloody head of Macart would rise between me and my shielding hands so that I must stiffen myself against the rising vomit.
That letter. How could mere words bear the weight of the horror and the grief and the fear?
I told him how the city had risen against me, of his men hanged for no fault; and especially I told him of Macart whom he valued above all men. Surely that treachery, that senseless murder must move his anger if nothing else could. I told him that unless he came at once they would carry me away—God alone knew where—Philip’s prisoner.
… I write this that am the most unhappy, the most ruined, the most betrayed and falsely treated woman alive …
And remembering how I had been betrayed by friend and by lover alike, I had to stop writing because of the shaking of my whole body. I forced myself to quiet, I took up the pen again.
… unless you come to my help at once … at once, I think you will never see me again. Most dear lord and husband, all my hope is in you and all my joy; all I suffer is from love of you. And so I beseech you, most humbly and very tenderly, for the love of God to have compassion upon me in all my miseries, and with the utmost speed, come to your forlorn creature if you do not want to lose me for ever …
I put down my pen and stared at the paper. Would this move him? To remind him of our marriage vows—and he living openly with another woman—was that wise? I crossed out the word husband and wrote father instead. If there was any tenderness in him, any pity, then I might move him by a sense of duty; the duty of a man towards a woman that had given up everything for his sake, a woman ten years younger than himself.
He loved me no longer; he did not believe now that he could pull any chestnut for himself out of my oven. If anything at all could move him it would be an appeal to his maturity from my youthfulness.
I took up my pen again.
… Dear lord and father, I pray you will do this for me. I have never behaved ill to you in my life and I never will. If you do not come I think I shall die. You are my only comfort and my last hope.
And then for all my care, bitterness came breaking through.
It seems that you have utterly forgotten me. And now I have nothing more to write except to commend to your kindness my servant Louis de Montfort that is in grave danger for my sake. He will tell you all the things I cannot write. I beg you, dear lord and father, be a good master to him. As for myself, let me but know your wish and whatever it may be I will obey with my whole heart; and my witness to this is the blessed Son of God. May He give you a long and happy life.
…Written in your false and treacherous city of Mons with a deeply sorrowful heart,
Your unhappy and loving child that suffers unspeakably for your sake.
I folded the paper that was blistered with my tears and sealed it; and I called to de Montfort to come forth.
He stood fingering the letter. ‘I will deliver it, with God’s help,’ he said. And then he said, ‘Lady, do not count overmuch on your answer. My Lord of Gloucester—however much his heart be set—will not find it easy to come to your help. The English Parliament reproaches him because he set his wife’s affairs before that of his country. They say that his fingers itching for a crown of his own, he has all but let his own King’s French crown slip.’
‘Their Parliament did not forbid him when there was a rich prize to be won! I am friendless, with neither husband nor father to stand by me. Yet God does not forsake me. He has given me a most true friend. How can God be less true than man?’ And I kissed him upon both cheeks.
These days I could not rest; I could neither sit nor stand, nor sleep, nor eat. How long before I would be given into Philip’s hands? Two weeks van Brederode thought. Time enough; enough to bring Gloucester sailing with his troops. He could not for shame’s sake let me fall into the ‘protection’ of my cousin.
Protection. I laughed aloud; and how dreary it sounded in the lonely sunlight of my chamber. Philip’s protection would take me to my death. Dead before Brabant, I! The sound limb cut from the tree before the rotten branch could drop. Yet so it would happen. Philip would make an end of me. Let Christendom whisper; his smooth tongue would make all right again. I should be dead; and my country ground beneath the Burgundian heel.
And so the slow days passed. I wandered the empty rooms and deserted gardens of this sad Naasterh of I had entered with so high a hope. I was virtually a prisoner now with none but Beatrix to share my imprisonment—but her I would have chosen from the whole world. And still no answer from England. And I knew what I had known in my heart from the beginning—how it must end.
And so I came to the last day. I had been warned to be ready at ten in the morning. But time came and went while I stood waiting; I looked down upon the Market Place and the free people coming and going in the June sunshine and I wondered whether I should walk the streets again—a free woman.
Courtesy, it seems, is not required to fallen princes. It was two o’clock when we left the Naasterh of; and in that time I lived through a dozen mad hopes, died a dozen wild despairs. All about me rode five hundred troops; by my litter rode the captain himself, the Prince of Orange, looking neither to right nor left. A man to do his duty and not to be turned aside by any woman’s grief.
From the hot gloom of the litter I could hear behind me the roll and rumble of wagons heavy with the weight of my treasures—sure sign I should never return. Philip would take all; except—if I were fortunate—the bare furnishings of my room; my bed perhaps, a stool, or a press. I could not comfort myself with the thought that he would allow me the dignities of my station; he had already dismissed my household. I was much concerned though for this second carefully garnered treasure of mine. Brabant had stolen all he could when I had run from Valenciennes. But there were furnishings in my own houses he had not been able to lay hands upon, the jewels Gloucester had given me together with furs and gowns; and I had also the gold I had saved from Henry of England’s gift. Now I was stripped of all but the few silver pieces in my pocket; and, if one seeks any comfort in prison, one must pay and pay again.
So there I rode in the dark litter, a prisoner, deserted by my husband and all but penniless. By my side Beatrix sat, her face as white as her coif. Once she sent me a smile—and God knows what it cost her! I could not send it back again, but sat dry-eyed and stony. Nor had I wept this morning when I bade Farewell to my mother, knowing, as she did, that this might well be for the last time. I had not meant to bid her Goodbye whose treachery had helped bring me to this pass. But, at the last moment I could not go without seeing her. She had sold me to Burgundy … but she was my mother.
Suddenly, with no warning, the litter stopped, throwing me upon Beatrix. There was a confused roar of voices crying aloud, the irregular clatter of hooves strange after the measured beat of my escort; and then the clash of steel upon steel.
Ears astrain, I made out a cry and dared not believe it. I looked at Beatrix and she nodded. And now the tears so long denied were running down her face. A Jacque, Jacque, Jacqueline! My name was a battlecry.
Gloucester had come at last!
My heart threw itself about like a bird in a cage. I pulled open the curtains of the litter, nor would I close them again for all Beatrix pulled at my cloak, crying out that if a stray arrow found its mark, then all rescue was in vain!
And, as I looked, my heart died.
There was no Gloucester, nor any ordered troops. A handful of friends, only, desperate for my rescue. Gallant they were; but the escort of five hundred would make short work of them.
And so it proved. And, as my captors closed about me again, and we resumed our steady march into Flanders, there was an added sorrow in my heart for the faithful hearts that lay still; hearts I could ill spare.
In the darkness of the litter, Beatrix and I folded our hands and prayed for the passing of their souls.
XXIV
The unexpected hope and the crushing of that hope was almost more than I could bear. And, added to my sorrow for friends uselessly dead, was bitterness that Gloucester had made no move. And all the time I was shaken by my fear. Where were they taking me? And what should I find when I arrived?
It was getting on for six of the clock, if I could judge by the shadows, when they brought us our supper there in the litter—and a rough supper it was! A strong hard cheese, a manchet of black bread and a skin of rough wine. I ate what I could of this coarse fare; it augured ill for our reception, wherever that might be.
And now we quickened our pace, for the skirmish had set us back. Orange must have had his orders not to delay, for we stopped only to change horses, and then Beatrix and I were allowed to come forth to stretch our limbs and to relieve ourselves. Then whips cracked again; the horses were lashed without mercy.
The long summer day passed into twilight and then into night. I slept fitfully, lulled by the stale air arid the beat of horses’ feet, only to be pricked awake again and again by my fears and my griefs … Gloucester had forsaken me. Well, I would care little for that, so I could go free; free to come and go where I would. Without love I could live; without freedom I must die. There in the dark night, carried steadily towards my prison, I remembered that when my young French husband had died, my mother had tied a black riband about my arm. Would she pay the same tribute when Philip had done with me? And I wondered whether it was true that Brabant lay dying in his airless room. And now—though he had humiliated me and betrayed me—I felt pity for a young life wasted and spoilt.
I might have spared my pity.
It was early morning when the spires of a city rose against the red sky. Orange turned in his saddle and for the first time spoke. ‘Ghent,’ he said. ‘And the end of our journey.’
It was full daylight when we clattered through the city gates. The streets were busy; and I envied most passionately the meanest fellow that went free about his business.
Past a very great hostelry we went; and, Orange, relieved now that his guardianship was all but over, told me it was the Cour de St Georges, renowned for its wines and its cookery; my Lord Duke of Burgundy held his feasts there. Down a narrow street, past the little market square where the horses were tethered and already the air acrid with their droppings to the long, low Buttermarket, its stalls already set out with articles both homely and fine—linens and fine silks, silverware and household pots. But I had no thought for them, then, though afterwards I strained my eyes to catch the corning and going of dear, common household affairs. Now my eyes were fixed upon the great fortress that towered black to the sky. The Gravenstein fortress. My heart that I had thought past sorrow fainted within me.
Philip was taking no chances.
Once this had been a royal residence and even then it must have been a forbidding place with its blank walls and its gaunt watching towers and its great keep high as a church steeple. And, as if one such fortress was not enough, the black walls and towers lay reflected in the oily waters of the river that flowed about it on three sides.
The drawbridge to the street fell with a clang; the great iron-studded gate within the wall closed behind us.
The courtyard was empty save for the men-at-arms who looked at me with a grinning curiosity. Orange gave me his hand and I stumbled a little from the cramping of my limbs. One of the fellows tittered; and Orange turned upon him such a look that the laughter scorched in his mouth. Another fellow with keys jangling from his belt came across the courtyard and bade us follow. Up a narrow staircase we went and into a pleasant set of rooms comfortably furnished. Torches flamed in cressets and a great fire burned; for all it was sweet summer without, within it was dark and cold. These pleasant rooms were not, alas, for me; but for the Governor who rose now to receive me.
Orange presented me, took a receipt for my safe arrival, bowed, and with the scantest farewell took his leave. He had been neither friendly nor careful for my comfort; yet I grieved to see him go—this last link with the free world and no corruption of prison on him.
I stood there, Beatrix behind me; and though my heart was low, my head was high. Madam the Duchess of Gloucester, Countess of Holland, of Hainault and of Zealand in her own right.
‘Madam,’ he said, ‘if you will keep faith with my lord the Count of Flanders,’—and that title, it seemed was greater in his eyes than the proud name of Burgundy—‘then he will keep faith with you. My lord allows that you move freely within this tower; and you may walk in the garden below. It is a small garden but it will serve. You may have your woman about you if she behave with discretion. And you may write your letters …
‘And will they be delivered?’
‘It depends—as Madam the Duchess of Brabant knows for herself.’ And the old discarded name fell upon me like an insult. ‘It depends upon what the letters contain. And for the rest, if Madam lacks for anything, she has but to speak.’
‘And if it’s freedom I lack?’
‘Madam knows the answer to that!’
He made a slight bow and ordered the fellow with the keys to conduct me to my apartments. Up another staircase we went, very dark and the stairs so worn and narrow I could scarce find foothold. The man threw open a door and, with a grudging bow, left us.
It was not as bad as it might have been; nor yet was it as good. I might have expected some comfort—my own cook, my own servants, my own furnishings. I had done no wrong and my birth entitled me to some attention, but Philip was too mean for that!
The rooms were a fair size; the furniture was of the plainest but sufficient. There were neither curtains nor cushions nor bedhangings. These made their appearance later, after my repeated demands, together with my drinking cup, some books and my writing materials. And that was all I ever got from my twenty-eight wagon loads!
And yet I had solace enough. I had Beatrix.
‘If I were a lady in an old tale,’ I said and I tried to sound cheerful, ‘why then the gaoler would fall in love with me and I would cozen him and so escape. But this is life and no romance. And I have shed so many tears I doubt there’s anything in my face to delight a man.’
‘Your face is well enough!’ she said. ‘And at your age—scarce twenty-four—the world is not lost … until life be lost!’ And she sighed, thinking no doubt of her Jan.
It was gloomy in the Gravenstein; but apart from the fact I was a prisoner, with all the frustrations and the depressions prison must bring, I was treated well enough. When the governor paid his daily visit to receive any complaint, I had none to make. I had enough to eat and I walked in the air when I would. The garden was certainly tiny, but the grass was green and a little rose-tree filled the air with its fragrance, so that shutting my eyes I could dream myself out of prison and into freedom—and I think that garden saved my reason.
When I was not walking in the air, or lying restless in my bed, I was writing my letters. Writing, writing; asking for news, asking for help, seeking desperately for comfort. Some answers I did receive; but though I wrote again and again, there was never a word from Gloucester. Even now, with pain and despair long past, I must make myself believe he never received them.
