Читать книгу The Queens of England - Strickland Agnes - Страница 17
Оглавление(A.D. 1185–1246.)
John ascended the throne of England on the death of his brother, Richard Cour de Lion, and it was at a festival given to him at Angouleme that he first made the acquaintance of Isabella, who afterwards became queen.
A.D. 1200. She was just fifteen years old and so beautiful that King John fell madly in love with her. She was engaged to Hugh de Lusignan at the time, but her parents were so ambitious for her to be raised to the lofty position of Queen of England, that they kept her with them after the festival instead of allowing her to return to the Castle of Valence, the possession of her betrothed, where she had been living under the protection of the Count of Eu, his brother.
Isabella really loved Hugh de Lusignan, but she was dazzled by the splendor of the triple crown of England, Normandy and Aquitaine, and, as her lover was absent, she denied that she had ever consented to marry him.
According to the feudal laws of the thirteenth century, King John, as ruler of Aquitaine, had the power to prevent any marriage that the Provençale princess might contract, if he chose, and to deprive her of her inheritance besides.
So, when King John and Isabella were married, in the month of August, 1200, Count Hugh dared not interfere to prevent it. But he challenged the king to mortal combat. The reply he got was that if he wished to fight a champion should be appointed for that purpose, but he was indignant at such a proposition and determined to await an opportunity for revenge.
Isabella sailed with her husband for England, where she was duly crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Six months of feasting and enjoyment succeeded, which were only terminated at last by rumors of war.
Thereupon, King John retired with his wife to Rouen, where he led such a life of indolent ease as to excite the displeasure of all who surrounded him.
His mother, the aged Eleanora, was then residing at the Castle of Mirabel in Poitou, and was the ruler of Aquitaine. Quite suddenly and unexpectedly her residence was besieged by Hugh de Lusignan, whose plan was to capture the old lady and exchange her only for his lost love.
But Eleanora held out heroically until the arrival of her son John, whom she had summoned at the first signal of danger.
King John's enemies had reckoned on his character as a sluggard, but they found their mistake, for when he heard of the attack on his mother he hastened to Mirabel with lightning speed, hemmed in Count Hugh and Duke Arthur of Bretagne, who had joined him, and took both prisoners. The one was his rival in love, the other in empire.
Count Hugh was subjected to the most insulting treatment at the hands of the king, who had him and the other insurgent barons of Poitou chained hand and foot to carts drawn by oxen. In this manner they were forced to follow him wherever he went, until he made them embark with him for England.
King John was not so cruel to his nephew, Arthur, whom he merely had locked up in the citadel of Falaise,
leaving himself the sole representative of the house of Plantagenet.
A.D. 1204. In 1204 Queen Eleanora died, and from that moment her son John seemed lost to all sense of decency or fear, and became more corrupt and wicked than the most brutal of his subjects. Queen Isabella's influence was no check on his notorious conduct.
In 1206 he entered into a treaty with his prisoner, Hugh de Lusignan, with whose aid he conquered the southern part of France.
On his return to England he made some most unreasonable demands of his barons, one of them being the surrender of their children as hostages. Those young nobles who fell into his hands were required to attend the queen, serve her at meals and follow her at cavalcades and processions. The Lord of Bramber resisted the King's demand, whereupon he, with his wife and five children, were all shut up in a room at the old Castle of Windsor and deliberately starved to death.
A.D. 1211. Queen Isabella had given birth to several children, but that did not prevent her brutal husband from treating her with extreme harshness. Once, when he fancied that she had a fancy for a certain knight, he had the man assassinated, and his dead body suspended over her bed. Then he shut her up in Gloucester Abbey, where she remained until 1213, when it suited his majesty to take her with him to Angoulême.
King John found himself again in need of Hugh de Lusignan's assistance when Philip Augustus of France seized the northern provinces. But that brave count refused his aid unless the king would give him his eldest daughter, Joanna, for a wife. This was a singular request, considering that he had once been engaged to the mother, but he was gratified, and the infant princess was forthwith handed over to him to be brought up in one of his castles as her mother had been before her. Count Hugh soon cleared the northern provinces of France of the invaders, and then John returned to England to perpetrate new acts of tyranny.
A.D. 1215. After the signing of the Magna Charta, which granted certain privileges to all his subjects, King John behaved like a madman, giving way to outbursts of fury, cursing the hour of his birth, and biting and gnawing sticks and clubs until he reduced them to small bits. The result of several sleepless nights at the fortress of Windsor, the scene of many secret murders, was an expedition to the Isle of Wight, where, after idly sauntering on the beach for days at a time and conversing with the fishermen, he joined a band of pirates with whom he made attacks on his own subjects. He was gone so long that everybody
hoped he would never return, but, like a bad penny, he turned up at the end of a few weeks, when he was joined by troops from Brabant and Guienne, whom he had summoned to aid him in revenging himself on the rebellious barons. This he did by travelling around among them, obliging them to entertain him, and then turning upon them and doing some damage to their lives or property. It was not uncommon for him to set fire to a house in which he had been sheltered over night.
In the midst of this diabolical career, Queen Isabella met her husband at Marlborough, and after spending a few weeks with him, retired to Gloucester with her children.
While she was there, Prince Louis of France made an invasion into England, prompted to the act by the barons, who were so incensed against their sovereign that they offered him the crown if he would come to their aid.
Then the tormentor tried to escape towards the north, but when he thought to cross the Wash to Lincolnshire, part of his army, his baggage, and his splendid regalia were lost, and he barely escaped with his life. He arrived at Swinshead Abbey ill and in a horrible temper.
With his usual brutality, he gave vent to his spleen by saying, while eating in the abbot's refectory, "that he hoped to make the half-penny loaf cost a shilling before the year was over."
This malicious speech was heard by several monks, who, thinking that John's outrages had extended far enough, treated him to a dose of poison served in a dish of stewed pears. Ill as he was from the effect of the poison, the king insisted on proceeding on his journey, and was therefore carried on a litter to Newark, where he summoned several monks for the purpose of confession. It was no trifling matter for this sinful man to recount all the wrongs of which he had been guilty, but having accomplished it, he forgave his enemies and made all the officers about him swear fealty to his eldest son, Henry. Then he expired, having left directions for his burial. As soon as the news
of the king's death reached her, Isabella caused Prince Henry to be proclaimed in the streets of Gloucester, and nine days later she assisted at his coronation in the cathedral of that place.
A.D. 1217. Although the young king was only nine years old, his mother was so unpopular that she was not asked to act as regent, and before the year of her widowhood had expired, she retired to her native city of Angoulême.
The Princess Joanna, then just seven years of age, was still at Count Lusignan's castle at Valence, but the count himself was absent on a crusade.
In the year 1220 he returned, and frequently met the mother of his little promised bride. The consequence was, that his early love was renewed, and as Isabella was still a very handsome woman, only a few years younger than himself, she was a much more appropriate mate for him than Joanna could have been.
So they were married without asking the advice or consent of any one in England; consequently Isabella's dower was withheld from her, much to the indignation of her husband.
Now, it so happened that Henry III. was at war with the King of Scotland, whom his council were anxious to conciliate. They therefore resolved to offer the king the hand of the little Princess Joanna in marriage, so when Henry wrote his mother a congratulatory letter on her nuptials, he demanded, at the same time, the restoration of his sister. Isabella refused to give up the princess, because she was highly displeased at being deprived of her jointure.
Thereupon the young king applied to the pope, who took great pains to inquire into the merits of the case. A voluminous correspondence was carried on between the contending parties. The King of Scots insisted upon his marriage with Joanna before he would come to terms; the result was the payment of all the money due to Queen Isabella in exchange for her daughter.
The King of France was the liege-lord of the Count de Lusignan, and it was so hurtful to the pride of Isabella to see her husband kneel at the feet of any man, that she gave him no rest until he joined her son, Henry III., whom she had instigated to undertake the conquest of Poitou.
Several years of warfare ensued, and at last the King of England fled to Bordeaux. De Lusignan's possessions were overrun by the enemy, and Queen Isabella was forced, after much suffering, to throw herself on the mercy of the King of France, Louis IX.
She went to his camp with her husband and children, and, falling at his feet, begged for mercy. He received them kindly, and granted forgiveness on easy conditions.
Nevertheless, so ungrateful did Isabella show herself, that when an attempt was made on the life of good King Louis, in 1244, it was proved that she had bribed people to poison him. She flew to the Abbey of Fontevraud for protection, and there hid herself from the French, who held her responsible for so much sorrow and bloodshed that they gave her the name of Jezebel.
She died in 1246, and was buried in the common cemetery of Fontevraud. Some years later her son, Henry III., raised a stately monument over her grave.
De Lusignan joined a crusade after the death of his wife, and was killed at one of the battles in 1249. His eldest son was known as Hugh XI., Count de la Marche and Angoulême. His other children were liberally provided for by Henry III., much to the indignation of his English subjects.
