Читать книгу The Lily and the Lion - Морис Дрюон - Страница 16

‘A KING’S SON CANNOT kneel to a count’s son!’ said the sixteen-year-old Sovereign. He had thought of this formula entirely on his own, and insisted on it to his counsellors, so that they in turn should insist on it to the French jurisconsults.

‘Really, my Lord Orleton,’ said young King Edward III, when they arrived in Amiens, ‘last year you came over to maintain that I had a greater right to the throne of France than my cousin of Valois. Do you now suggest that I should throw myself to the ground at his feet?’

Like so many boys whose parents have lived dissolute and irregular lives, Edward III, now that he was on his own for the first time, was determined to act on sound and sensible principles. During his six days in Amiens, he had insisted that the whole question of the homage be reconsidered.

‘But my Lord Mortimer is most anxious to maintain peace with France,’ said John Maltravers.

‘My lord,’ Edward interrupted him, ‘you are here to guard me, I believe, not to advise.’

He could not conceal his dislike of the long-faced Baron who had been not only his father’s jailer but undoubtedly also his murderer. To have to submit to Maltravers’ surveillance and indeed his spying, for that was what it amounted to, annoyed Edward very much. He went on:

‘My Lord Mortimer is our great friend, but he is not the King, and it is not he who is to render homage. And my Lord Lancaster, who by virtue of presiding over the Council of Regency is alone in a position to take decisions in my name, gave me no instructions before I left as to the nature of the homage I should render. I refuse to render the homage of a liegeman.’

The Bishop of Lincoln, Henry de Burghersh, Chancellor of England, who was also of Mortimer’s party, but less under his thumb and certainly more intelligent than Maltravers, could not but approve the young King’s concern to defend his dignity and the interests of his realm, in spite of the difficulties it created.

For not only did the homage of a liegeman oblige the vassal to present himself with neither arms nor crown, but also to take the oath on his knees, which implied that the vassal was, as his first duty, the suzerain’s man.

‘As his first duty,’ Edward emphasized, ‘and therefore, my lords, if it so happened that, while we were making war in Scotland, the King of France summoned me to a war of his own in Flanders, Lombardy or elsewhere, I should have to abandon everything to join him, failing which he would have the right to seize my duchy. I cannot have that.’

Lord Montacute, who was one of the barons of Edward’s suite, developed a great admiration for his young sovereign’s precocious wisdom and no less precocious firmness. Montacute himself was twenty-eight.

‘I think we shall have a good king,’ he said. ‘It is a pleasure to serve him.’

From then on he was always by Edward’s side, lending him counsel and support.

In the end, the young King had his way. Philippe of Valois’ advisers also wanted peace and, above all, to bring the negotiations to a conclusion. The important thing was that the King of England had come. They had not assembled the whole kingdom and half Europe merely to afford them the spectacle of the negotiations ending in failure.

‘Very well, let him render merely simple homage,’ said Philippe VI to his chancellor, as if it were of no greater significance than a decision about some dance figure, or tournament entry. ‘I think he’s quite right; in his place, I should no doubt do the same.’

And so it was that Edward III advanced up the cathedral, which was packed with lords right into the side chapels, wearing his sword, his royal mantle, embroidered with leopards, which fell in long folds from his shoulders, and his crown. His fair eyelashes were lowered and excitement had enhanced the usual pallor of his face. The heavy adornments made his extreme youth all the more striking. He looked like an archangel; and all the women felt their hearts go out to him, indeed fell in love with him on the spot.

Two English bishops and ten barons walked behind him.

The King of France, his mantle embroidered with lilies, sat enthroned in the choir, a little higher than the kings, queens and sovereign princes about him, whose crowns formed a sort of pyramid. He rose with majestic courtesy to receive his vassal, who came to a halt three paces from him.

A great ray of sunlight was shining through a window and touching them as if it were a sword from Heaven.

Messire Mille de Noyers, the Chamberlain, a master of Parliament and a master of the Exchequer, stepped forward from the crowd of peers and great officers and took up his position between the two sovereigns. He was a grave-looking man of about sixty, who seemed not the least impressed either by his state robes or by the part assigned him. In a loud, clear voice he said: ‘Sire Edward, the King, our Master and most puissant Lord, does not receive you here in testimony of all the rights he holds by law in Gascony and Agenais, as King Charles IV held them by law, and which are not included in the homage.’

Then Henry de Burghersh, Edward’s chancellor, stepped forward to stand beside Mille de Noyers and replied: ‘Sire Philippe, our Lord and Master, the King of England, or any other for him or by him, renounces none of the rights he holds in the Duchy of Guyenne and its appurtenances, and declares that the King of France acquires no new rights whatsoever by this homage.’

These were the highly ambiguous formulas that had been agreed upon; they defined nothing, they settled nothing. Each word had a double meaning.

The French wanted it understood that the borderlands, which had been seized in the previous reign during the campaign commanded by Charles of Valois, were to remain directly attached to the Crown of France. This was a confirmation of the de facto position.

On the English side, the phrase ‘any other for him or by him’ was an allusion to the King’s minority and to the existence of the Council of Regency; but the ‘by him’ might in the future equally well apply to the Seneschal of Guyenne or any other royal lieutenant. As for the expression ‘no new rights’, it could be taken to signify the ratification of the rights already acquired, including those granted by the treaty of 1327. But it was not said explicitly.

These declarations, like every treaty of peace or alliance between nations throughout history, depended for their application entirely on the good or bad will of the Governments concerned. For the moment, the fact that the two princes had come face to face was evidence of a mutual desire to live in amity.

Chancellor Burghersh unrolled a parchment to which was attached the seal of England and read out in the vassal’s name:

‘“Sire, I become your man of the Duchy of Guyenne and its appurtenances, which I claim to hold from you as Duke of Guyenne and Peer of France in accordance with the Treaties of Peace made between your predecessors and ours, and because of what we and our ancestors, Kings of England and Dukes of Guyenne, have done in the name of the said duchy for your predecessors, the Kings of France.”’

Then the Bishop handed Mille de Noyers the parchment he had just read. It had been much shortened in the drafting when the liegeman’s homage was cut out.

Mille de Noyers said in reply: ‘Sire, you become the man of my Lord the King of France for the Duchy of Guyenne and its appurtenances which you recognize that you as Duke of Guyenne and Peer of France hold from him, and in accordance with the Treaties of Peace made between his predecessors, Kings of France, and yours, and because of what you and your ancestors, Kings of England and Dukes of Guyenne, have done for his predecessors, Kings of France, in the name of the said duchy.’

All this would furnish splendid matter for dispute on the day the two countries fell out.

Then Edward III said: ‘In truth.’

And Mille de Noyers replied with these words: ‘The King, our Sire, receives you, subject to the protestations and reservations above stated.’

Edward stepped forward three paces to his suzerain. He took off his gloves and handed them to Lord Montacute. He reached out his slender white hands and put them in the large palms of the King of France. Then the two kings kissed.

It was remarked that Philippe VI did not need to bend down far to reach his young cousin’s face. The chief difference between them lay in Philippe’s robustness which made him seem so imposing. But there could be no doubt that the King of England, who was still growing, would develop into a fine figure of a man.

The bells in the higher tower began pealing again. Everyone was pleased. Peers and dignitaries nodded to each other in satisfaction. King John of Bohemia, behind his handsome auburn beard that spread down across his chest, looked noble and thoughtful. Count Guillaume the Good and his brother Jean of Hainaut exchanged smiles with the English lords. Truly it was a good deed that had just been done.

What was the use of quarrelling, growing angry, threatening, bearing plaints to Parliament, confiscating fiefs, besieging towns, fighting to the death with great waste of gold, toil and the blood of knights, when with a little goodwill on all sides such admirable agreement could be reached?

The King of England took his place on the throne prepared for him a little below that of the King of France. It remained now only to hear mass.

Yet Philippe VI seemed still to be waiting for something. He turned to the peers who were sitting in the stalls and looked for Robert of Artois, whose coronet stood out higher than all the rest.

Robert’s eyes were half shut. Though it was pleasantly cool in the cathedral, he was wiping the sweat from his brow with his red-gloved hand. His heart was beating very fast at this moment. He had not realized that the dye was running from his glove and there was a bloody streak across his face.

Suddenly he left his stall; he had made up his mind.

‘Sire,’ he cried, coming to a halt in front of Philippe’s throne, ‘since all your vassals are here assembled …’

A few moments before, Mille de Noyers and Bishop Burghersh had spoken in clear firm voices, audible throughout the great building. But when Robert spoke he made them sound like birds twittering.

‘… and since everyone has a right to your justice,’ he went on, ‘it is justice I come to ask of you.’

‘Monseigneur of Beaumont, my cousin, who has done you wrong?’ Philippe VI asked gravely.

‘I have been wronged, Sire, by your vassal Dame Mahaut of Burgundy who by guile and felony has sequested the title and possession of the County of Artois which is mine by right of inheritance from my ancestors.’

But a voice, very nearly as loud, was heard shouting from the stalls. ‘This was bound to happen sooner or later’

It was Mahaut of Artois.

The congregation showed some surprise perhaps, but no very great astonishment. Robert was following the precedent of the Count of Flanders at the coronation. It seemed to have become customary for a peer who thought himself wronged to bring his complaint forward on these solemn occasions; and it was obviously done with the King’s prior consent.

Duke Eudes of Burgundy looked inquiringly at his sister, the Queen of France, who gazed back at him and with a movement of her open hands gave him to understand that she was as much surprised as he was and knew nothing of the matter at all.

‘Cousin,’ said Philippe, ‘can you produce documents in evidence to prove your rights?’

‘I can,’ Robert said firmly.

‘He can’t, he’s lying!’ cried Mahaut, who now left the stalls and came to stand beside her nephew in front of the King.

How alike Robert and Mahaut were. They were wearing identical coronets and robes; they were both equally angry, and the blood was mounting in their bull-necks. Mahaut, too, was wearing the great, gold-hilted sword of a peer of France on her Amazonian flank. They could have looked no more alike had they been mother and son.

‘Aunt,’ said Robert, ‘do you deny that the marriage contract made by my noble father, Count Philippe of Artois, appointed me, his first-born, heir to Artois, and that you took advantage of my being a child to dispossess me after my father’s death?’

‘I deny every word of it, you wicked nephew! How dare you try to disgrace me?’

‘Do you deny there was a marriage contract?’

‘I deny it!’ shouted Mahaut.

There was an angry murmur throughout the cathedral, and old Count de Bouville, who had been Chamberlain to Philip the Fair, was distinctly heard to utter a scandalized ‘Oh!’ Though it was not everyone who had as good reason as Bouville, who had been Curator of Queen Clémence’s stomach at the time of the birth of Jean I, the Posthumous, to know Mahaut of Artois’ remarkable capabilities in the realms of perjury and crime, it was quite obvious that she was flagrantly denying the evidence. A marriage between a son of the House of Artois, a prince of the fleur de lis,¹⁰ and a daughter of the House of Brittany would most certainly not have been arranged without a contract ratified both by the King and the peers of the time. Duke Jean of Brittany, though he had been a child at the time of the marriage, remembered it perfectly and was telling his neighbours so. This time Mahaut had gone too far. It was one thing to plead, as she had done in two lawsuits, the ancient custom of Artois, which was in her favour owing to the premature death of her brother, but it was quite another to deny that there had been a marriage contract. She merely succeeded in confirming everyone’s suspicions; and, in particular, that she had done away with the documents herself.

Philippe VI turned to the Bishop of Amiens.

‘Monseigneur, please bring the Holy Gospels and hand them to the plaintiff.’

He paused for a moment, then added: ‘And also to the defendant.’

And when it was done, he said: ‘My cousins, do you agree to maintain your statements by swearing on the Holy Gospels in the presence of ourself, your suzerain, and in the presence of the Kings, our cousins, and all your peers here assembled?’

Philippe looked really majestic as he said this, and his young son, Prince Jean, who was ten years old, gazed at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, lost in admiration of his father. But the Queen of France, Jeanne the Lame, had a wicked, indeed a cruel line each side of her mouth, and her hands were trembling; while Mahaut’s daughter, the Dowager Queen Jeanne, the widow of Philippe the Long, a thin, dried-up woman, had gone as pale as her white dowager’s robe. And no less pale were Mahaut’s granddaughter, the young Duchess of Burgundy, and her fifty-year-old husband, Duke Eudes. They looked as if they would have liked to rush forward and stop Mahaut taking the oath. There was a great silence and everyone was watching.

‘I agree!’ said Mahaut and Robert together.

‘Take off your gloves,’ said the Bishop of Amiens.

Mahaut’s gloves were green, and the heat had made their dye run too. And when the two huge hands were stretched out towards the Holy Book, one was as red as blood and the other green as gall.

‘I swear,’ said Robert, ‘that the County of Artois is mine and that I shall produce documents in evidence to establish my right to it.’

‘My fine nephew,’ cried Mahaut, ‘do you dare swear that you have ever seen or possessed such documents?’

Face to face, grey eyes staring into grey eyes, their big square chins almost touching, they defied each other.

‘Bitch,’ thought Robert, ‘so it really was you who stole them!’ And since in such circumstances decision is vital, he said in a clear voice: ‘I swear it. But do you, my fine aunt, dare swear that these documents have never existed, and that you have never had knowledge or possession of them?’

‘I swear it,’ she replied with an assurance equal to his own, and she gazed at him, returning hate for hate. Neither of them had gained any advantage over the other. The balance was in equilibrium, the false oaths they had compelled each other to take weighing equally in the opposite scales.

‘Commissioners will be appointed tomorrow to make inquiry and enlighten my justice. Whoever has lied will be punished by God, whoever has sworn the truth shall be established in his right,’ said Philippe, signing to the Bishop to take the Gospels away.

God does not need to intervene directly to punish perjury, and the heavens may remain dumb. The wicked bear within themselves the seeds of their own misfortunes.