Читать книгу The Three Edwards: The Pageant of England - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 16

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Life in the castles might have its moments of picturesque grandeur, as when visiting royalty sat down in the great hall and the tables swarmed with the nobility and the rich churchmen. In the main it was a bare and very uncomfortable existence. Even in the King’s House at Windsor, which Eleanor had bedecked with hangings and rugs, the rooms were cold in winter. So strong were the drafts that the tapestries would be blown about against the damp walls. The sleeping chambers were high up in the tall towers and were as small and unpretentious as the niche in the wall where Edward II was said to have been born.

There were always diversions, of course. During meals there was music from the minstrels’ gallery, provided by the harp, the dulcimer, the jingling frame-drums (generally called timbrels), and the bladder-pipe, which was a small variety of bagpipe and consisted of a double clarinet with a bladder instead of a bag; even sometimes the portative organ, which had just been invented and was so minute that an itinerant musician could carry it about on his back.

Queen Eleanor had been raised in the court of her half brother, Alfonso of Castile, and so had acquired a taste for the arts and sciences. Alfonso, called El Sabio by his subjects, was both a scholar and a poet and he kept his court filled with learned men. It was not surprising, therefore, that Eleanor had an appetite for culture which did not find much satisfaction in the atmosphere of the English court. Even opportunities for reading were limited, the royal library consisting of three books, and these considered to be of such value that they could not be reached easily; they were locked up with the royal jewels. What were these three precious volumes?

A book of ancient chronicles, almost certainly in Latin.

A Latin work on agriculture.

A copy of fables in French called Romaunt de Guillaume de Conquerant.

The last named might have interested the members of the family had they been able to get it into their hands; but not very much, because it was made up of very foolish and incredible tales.

It is on record that both the king and queen played chess. One of the dignitaries of the Knights Templar in France presented Edward with a chessboard made of jasper and men of crystal. The king gave it in turn to Eleanor. The royal couple were inclined to the game, no doubt, by the commonly accepted but erroneous belief of that day that King Solomon had invented it. Chess was, of course, a far different game from the perfect diversion it was to become in later centuries. If the piece now called the queen bore that same name in those early days, Eleanor might have been disposed to demur because it could be moved one square only diagonally and was the weakest piece on the board.

There is a story that one day Edward was playing a game with one of his knights. Suddenly he sprang from his chair, impelled by a motive he could not later explain. As he moved away, a stone from the ceiling fell on the exact spot where he had been sitting. The safety of Edward was ascribed, of course, to divine intervention. If the incident occurred at Windsor, it might easily have been the work of the uncertain chalk ridge.

Eleanor strove to become a patroness of the arts and was willing to make personal grants, as large as forty shillings, for literary efforts such as translations from the Latin. An even more useful contribution to the cultural side of life in the country was her introduction of the fork. It has been assumed that this most useful of table articles was not known in England until a much later date, but in a list of the queen’s plate there is mention of forks of crystal and of silver, with handles of ebony or ivory. A later item in the Record Commission includes forks among the domestic articles used by the king.

The king not only endeavored to keep pace with the cultural activities of his queen but was as amenable to household customs as the most humble of husbands. It was the rule on Easter Monday for the women in all large establishments to surround the master and hoist him, willy-nilly, in a chair and not let him down until he paid them a proper gratuity. This was popularly called “heaving.” One year seven of the queen’s high-placed young ladies took Edward in hand and “heaved” him in his chair amid much laughter and clapping of hands. The king took it with good grace and paid them the handsome sum of fourteen pounds for his release.