A clear blue-sky winter morning greeted the coronation crowds. Henry and Eleanor, each mounted on a destrier caparisoned in crimson, rode from the crumbling, war-damaged Palace of Westminster to the Abbey to show themselves to their subjects. The Abbey and every building nearby flew the standard of the new King – two gold lions on a red ground. When Henry raised his blue velvet hat to wave it at the mob, arrows of sunlight flashed from his hair. ‘He’s crowned already!’ someone shouted. People ignored the swords of knights guarding the royal couple and rushed towards them, in their excitement forgetful of the danger from horses’ hooves. Henry was sending mental pictures to both steeds, ordering them to stay calm, not to rear. He blew kisses to the women and gave military salutes to men who came to the doorways of their shops, wiping dirty hands on work aprons. Eleanor held out her arms and gave them joyous laughter.
‘Look at her belly! Seven months gone!’ women said.
One yelled, ‘Highness, when will the baby come?’
Eleanor did not understand English. ‘Prince!’ she called back, patting her side, the French word was close enough. The crowd yelled and clapped.
Henry leaned from his saddle to heave a child from its father’s arms to sit in front of him. With his left arm cradling the boy, he wrenched his sword from its scabbard and shook it above his head.
Tears stood in the eyes of old men and women. ‘We’ve got a real king again!’
‘Long live Henry!’
Henry tossed his hat to the crowd. Hands snatched for it.
A man cried, ‘A new sun shines in England’s sky!’
Five people ran towards the Abbey. Ten followed. Then twenty. Suddenly there were two hundred shouting and shoving, trying to push inside to join the hundreds already gathered. Prelates and the baronage had the best positions, near the front, jostled by upstarts who’d made their fortunes during the civil war. Behind them were canny working people who’d spent the night sleeping on the floor. A triple row of chairs at the very front was reserved for the monarch’s family, among them William and Isabel, the Count and Countess of Surrey, senior clergy and magnates. Trumpeters announced the entrance of the new King and Queen. Huge bronze bells began to chime. Tall armoured knights with halberds pushed against the standing throng, opening a path for twenty bishops, all gorgeously robed, the Archbishops and their Archdeacons, followed by the monarchs and after them monks who chanted as they swung thuribles from which clouds of incense floated. ‘The perfume of Heaven,’ people whispered.
Henry reached for his wife’s hand and, like lovers, the two progressed behind the clergy, smiling right and left. ‘They’re in love,’ she heard an English aristocrat say in strangely accented French and rewarded her with a heart-melting smile.
‘A real beauty,’ men said, thinking, even if she’s too old for him. Her luxuriant chestnut hair rippled down her back to the tips of her shoulder blades; it was a privilege of Coronation Day for subjects to glimpse their Queen’s hair uncovered. ‘You can tell if a woman’s keen in the bedchamber by the look of her hair,’ men told each other, nodding at Eleanor’s shining curls. Her big belly delighted them. She’d had no luck with Louis, but with their Henry she was as fecund as a coney. Men who fancied their success with women ran their eyes over the young King’s body, assessing his virility. He wasn’t especially tall, but he seemed to be. Something emanated from him that made them feel taller, stronger, more courageous, greater in honour than ever before, proud to call themselves Englishmen. Their chests swelled. Here was a king they’d fight for.
A year earlier Henry had spent months persuading men who owned land in England and Normandy that he would protect their property on both sides of the Channel. He knew they were weary of war. But to break a vow of homage was a crime and all had sworn homage to King Stephen. Instead of bludgeoning them to submission, Henry had invited them to come to him in amity; they knew he would win the war – if not this year, then next. He promised them justice. He toured the country not as a warrior but as a politician. Gradually men abandoned their vows and threw in their lot with ‘The Anjevin’. After years of civil war, Henry’s final battle for the throne had been won with almost no bloodshed.
Strolling through the Abbey he nodded to barons, to some he raised a hand in greeting, called out a man’s name or a place where they had fought together against Stephen.
‘England is restored to life!’ someone cried.
‘It feels like a wedding day,’ Eleanor whispered. ‘The joy!’
He squeezed her hand. It was his wedding day; he was about to wed a spouse whose dowry was every fish, every bird, every tree, forest, stone, river, hill, mountain, hamlet, village, roadway, path, blade of grass, flower – the very sky itself – every part of her not already given, sold or rented to someone else, would be his. He was about to take possession as owner of an entire country.
Once seated on the dais Eleanor’s glance flicked towards her son, who squirmed in the arms of his nurse. She drew a quick breath then composed herself. Her mother-in-law held the hand of Henry’s bastard, Geoffrey, on whose head was a miniature crown, a piece of wood painted gold, with star-shapes in the colour of jewels. Matilda’s eyes stabbed for a moment at the baby Count of Poitou. A tiny smile moved across her lips.
Seated beside Matilda were Henry’s beloved brother-by-adoption, William de Warrenne and his wife, the demure and lovely Countess of Surrey. On her other side were Matilda’s two younger sons and three daughters. The second row of chairs held the illegitimate children of Henry’s father, Geoffrey the Handsome, and his Spanish concubine. The eldest of this brood was Guillaume, dressed in a green robe embroidered with Geoffrey’s gold leopards. His mother, the concubine, wore rubies. Eleanor glanced at her but the woman’s strong, handsome face remained impassive. Since the death of Henry’s father, Matilda and the Spaniard, deadly enemies while Geoffrey lived, had united in their loathing of the Lady of Aquitaine.
Guillaume lifted Little Geoffrey onto his shoulders to give him a better view. Seated directly behind them the Bishop of Winchester had to crane his neck. His Grace said loudly in Latin, ‘Ill-mannered bastard.’
Matilda turned. ‘Thieves should keep their mouths shut.’
Prelates on either side of Winchester elbowed each other. The Bishop of Winchester had filched the sacred Hand of St James from the tomb of Matilda’s father in Reading Abbey where she herself had laid it, tears of filial piety running down her cheeks. He’d placed it in his cathedral at Winchester, where the faithful poured out rivers of silver to stand in its holy presence.
The magnates Robert and Walern of Leicester and some other earls had seats on the few chairs that remained behind the prelates. Others, whom Henry had not persuaded to his cause, had to stand. They whispered to each other about the man who would rule them: ‘The Bishop of Limoges declared he could not provide the Duke with better food because he was camped outside the city. Henry had the city walls pulled down and forced the Bishop to stand beside him and watch.’ A third said, ‘He was nineteen years old. When his constable asked, “What is our policy, sir?” he replied, “First awe. Then soothe. But only if I have to.” He squeezed the Bishop’s wrist so hard the poor fellow couldn’t lift his hand to give the blessing at Mass next day.’
Abruptly the giant bronze bells and the chanting monks fell silent. On the dais, bishops had taken up places on either side of the thrones, each embroidered with two lions. The Archbishop of York stood behind the Queen. Canterbury stood in front of all. The throng stopped chattering and whispering, gripped with apprehension. The mystery of making a king was about to happen. But none could see the magic because the Archdeacons of Canterbury and York were unrolling a golden pall to hide the sacred rite. Eleanor glanced at Henry. His attention was elsewhere. So too, she realised, was her own. She felt her head spin until she was giddy. A hand – York, she supposed – steadied her shoulder. Beside her, Henry’s forehead glistened with chrism. Like an animal brought down by an arrow, his eyes were half-closed and unfocused. The moment of crowning had arrived.
Theobald lowered the crown over his head and Henry’s eyes sprang open. He heard a clap of thunder. Lightning struck through the top of his skull, down his spine to the soles of his feet. Hidden behind the pall, all those on the dais saw him jump. Terror gripped them. The Guardian was present!
Henry recognised him instantly. Tall and naked, he rode bareback on a rearing steed, a spear raised ready to strike. He, the horse and the spear were blue.
Theobald whispered, ‘Do you see him, Highness?’
‘I do,’ Henry murmured.
‘He’ll instruct you.’
The Saint stared into the new King’s face. ‘You are to bring law to this lawless land. You are to make your house great, as We have told you since birth. But beware.’ He raised his spear in the direction of the Queen. Henry felt his heart stop. I’m fainting, he thought. The words he’d once said to his father reverberated inside the hollow of his skull. If she can betray one king, she can betray another.
The vision disappeared.
‘Did you hear what he said?’ he whispered to Theobald.
‘No. He speaks only to a king.’
The Archbishop was concentrating on positioning the orb and sceptre in the monarch’s hands. York was keeping his distance, beside the Queen. ‘Stephen cringed as he was crowned. The Guardian is a man of war. He never shows Himself to clergy. But sometimes He rebukes me with a whack from His spear on the back of my neck. I know it’s Him. I hear thunder. It’s very frightening.’ He corrected Henry’s grip on the sceptre. ‘It’s said he fights beside the King if the war is just.’
He moved to Eleanor, murmuring ‘By the grace of God, Eleanor, Queen of England. The blessing of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is upon you, now and forever.’ Her eyelids fluttered. The crown bit her forehead. ‘The Virgin and all angels, thrones, dominions, archai, mights and powers, keep you from every harm, and bless your womb with sons.’
The High Priest stepped back and nodded to someone in the dim recesses of the cathedral ceiling. The Archdeacons rolled up the pall. The man and woman who had walked bareheaded into the cathedral now wore crowns of gold. To everyone who beheld them, they were magically transformed into demi-gods.
Their subjects felt breathless as they looked at them. All knew Merlin’s prophesy: a young king will reign, and silver will flow from the hooves of oxen. They rejoiced in their hearts. He’ll make us rich again!
‘Idols,’ Winchester muttered to the bishop seated beside him. ‘Our new idols.’
Thunderous peal upon peal of bells rang out. The hundreds who filled the Abbey cried in one voice, ‘Long Live King Henry! Long Live Our King!’
Eleanor’s head stopped spinning. But something odd had happened while Henry was being crowned. The Archdeacon of Canterbury, standing beside her and holding one end of the pall, had jumped. She was sure it was him; a tall, handsome man with lustrous brown eyes. As he lowered the gold cloth and the Abbey erupted with shouts of joy he bent to her ear. In passable Latin he stuttered, ‘H-H-Highness, the people shout their blessing for long life.’
Henry was staring past the heads of his family to the magnates assembled beneath him. The Earls of Leicester, Hereford, Derby, Pembroke and Norfolk gazed up, willing their hard eyes to look pleasant. ‘Norfolk,’ Henry muttered to Theobald. ‘Turncoat. Swine. Nothing to be done about him. Yet.’ He also detested William, Lord of Peverel and Nottingham. Peverel had poisoned Henry’s dearest friend in England, Earl Ranulf of Chester. ‘What’s the punishment for poisoners?’ he asked.
‘In your courts, Sire, to be boiled alive. But the Earl of Hertford is admirable and Pembroke’s a reasonable man,’ the Archbishop added.
Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, was a Stephen supporter who had refused to come over to Henry. He was known, as was his father, as Strongbow. Henry had decided to strip Strongbow of titles and land. ‘He’ll become more reasonable when he discovers he has no dowry for his sister.’
Theobald said, ‘It is time for you to speak, Sire.’ The gigantic bells fell silent.
Henry laid the orb and sceptre aside. Those seated leapt to their feet, for none could sit when a monarch stood. He strode a few paces to the front of the dais. ‘My loyal subjects …’ he began. A tight, expectant hush descended on the Abbey. ‘My loyal subjects, many of you have suffered vileness in the years since my grandfather, The Lion, ruled this land.’ The crowd was attentive. ‘England is a small country with a great heart.’ He could feel them relax. ‘It shall once again become a great and prosperous realm.’ People began smiling, glancing at each other almost gleefully. ‘As your King, I shall restore all the concessions, gifts, liberties and freedoms that existed under England’s last legitimate King, Henry the First. I shall abolish the evil customs, including those that have sprung up among the children of our Mother, the Church.’ He heard a shuffling in the ranks of the clergy. ‘My vow to you is the restoration of my whole realm.’ He could see some men’s muscles tense around their shoulders as if they already felt the blow that was coming. ‘As of this moment, I declare that every castle built in the past twenty years shall be destroyed!’
He was in his stride now, his eyes piercing the dim light of the Abbey. ‘There are more than a thousand illegal castles in England. I’ve had them counted. Every castellan shall destroy and abandon his adulterine buildings or the royal engineers will do it for him.’ He paused to allow the shock of what he said to sink in. Men and women of ancient lineage, whose castles had been awarded to them by Henry’s ancestors, others who had come to England when it was a colony of Rome, or first became a colony of Normandy, smiled and nodded. But war profiteers turned to each other in dismay.
A voice cried, ‘No!’
Someone else shouted, ‘You can’t!’
Henry stared at them, his head lowered. The murmuring increased to a hubbub as people began to argue with each other. He can. He can’t. Suddenly Thomas Becket picked up a hand bell standing close to the altar and holding it aloft rang it vigorously. It was how he silenced the monks in the Chapter House at Canterbury. The Abbey hushed. Theobald gave him a horrified look but the King ignored him. Thomas had been on edge for days because there had still been no official word on the post of Chancellor, and during the crowning there had been a bizarre occurrence when the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and something hit him. A hellish sound, the hiss of a huge snake, had shot through his ears. He thought others must have heard it. He had jumped away from the sound and glanced around, but nobody else seemed to have noticed. He was so shaken he felt slightly mad. The King was saying, ‘England shall no longer be a country of affray, injustice, violence and murder. England shall be a land of peace. And peaceful, it will become prosperous. And you, my loyal subjects, will become prosperous with it.’ He lifted his arms as if he would physically hoist them all aloft.
‘A Colossus bestrides us,’ a prelate murmured.
Idiot, Winchester thought. He peered around a set of shoulders to observe his nephew who, five years from now, could be standing where Henry Plantagenet stood. The youth looked awed. The whelp will need more persuasion, he thought. But he noted on Isabel’s profile an expression of calm assessment, her attention fixed on the Queen.
Someone yelled, ‘Hooray! Hooray for Henry!’ In seconds earls, magnates, ladies, knights and nobodies were shouting ‘Hooray’, stamping their feet, yelling with joy at this new day of hope.
Winchester muttered, ‘He’s seized England. France will be next. I must warn Louis.’
Henry, his arms still raised, moved them back and forth, back and forth. Behold me. I am victory, the gesture said.
He turned to the altar and laid on it a scroll containing his coronation charter. Then with the prelates and the Queen following him, he strode to the east end of the Abbey, out of sight of the crowd. A bronze carillon flew from church to church, a ringing fire of hope leaping through a country numbed cold by years of war.
Eleanor said, ‘I thought they were going to riot when you said you’d knock their castles down.’
Henry snorted. The night before he’d ordered Norman and Anjevin knights to surround the Abbey walls and stay alert for any resistance to his announced policy. ‘I had ’em by the throat.’ His tone was caustic.
Eleanor was exhausted. Her heavy gown and its undergowns, the arrangement of her hair so the crown would not set her curls in disarray, the jewels she wore, her shoes, her perfume, all had taken hours of preparation. Riding to the Abbey and the long ceremony had left her with an aching back. She wanted to lie down. But before the early darkness of December fell upon the city of London, a final greeting to the populous was necessary. The day had turned cold and the blue sky of morning was now a thick grey cloud; the air pinched with coming snow.
Henry had ordered that a special ration of ale be given to the citizens and by the time the monarchs rode out to greet them people’s faces were red with drink. Some were singing, some danced, some had bloody noses from fights. But they were as festive as any crowd Eleanor had seen in France. By now they had heard the King’s promise to bring peace to the whole realm and knock down the illegal castles. He wore the sword of his grandfather, whose reign they now remembered as a golden age when they themselves were young and beautiful.
It was customary for a new monarch to fling coins to the crowd. Henry did, but soon dismounted and walked among the people, pressing a coin into an opened palm, shaking a man by the shoulder, smiling at a woman who beamed at him, toothless. He kissed her leathery cheek. His guards jumped to the ground, following him on foot. People snatched at him, wanting to feel the magic that emanated from him.
‘Let’s go to a tavern,’ Henry said.
He had no more coins to give away. But he had to do something to set this day in his subjects’ minds.
Guillaume had hung back beside the Queen and her guard, all still mounted.
‘Come on, brother!’ Henry shouted.
Guillaume leapt down and the throng parted to let him through. Shoulder to shoulder they barged into the first tavern they saw. Drinkers leapt up crying ‘It’s the King! The King comes to speak to us!’
Henry turned to Guillaume. ‘Sing it!’ he hissed.
Guillaume raised his hands. Silence fell. He sang in English the song they’d sung years ago in France: A young lion steps forth from his den.
‘Again!’ drinkers shouted.
Guillaume sang again. By now an entire street had rushed into the tavern. As snowflakes wended their way to the ground outside, inside perspiration streaked men’s foreheads. Henry held his arms above his head. They cheered. They stretched their fingers to touch him. They yelled.
‘My loyal subjects!’ the King roared, turned and was gone.
The news was all over London in an hour. Our new King comes to talk to the people. Stephen and Eustace had avoided them as if they were wild beasts.
That night Eleanor remarked, ‘You did well with Guillaume’s singing trick.’
‘My pockets were empty. I’m the most impoverished king in Europe.’ He pulled a face of misery.
‘Rich in guile, my dear.’ Her tone was sharp.
‘But your love, Eleanor, makes a beggar into a king,’ he murmured.
Artisans had already sculpted the bedchamber ceiling with new lions. The Usurper had ordered The Old Lion’s symbol chiselled from his private quarters, replacing it with angels. Now gold lions pranced above them. Henry drew his wife by her wrist and handed her a pillow. ‘Try to beat me!’
They stood on the bed to fling their pillows at the ceiling, squealing. The tension of the day melted. Henry gave a final leap with a pillow and collapsed on his back. He gazed with affection at his erect penis. ‘What do you think, Cousin? My stallion is keen. But with your belly so full, can your palfrey accommodate him?’
‘Alas!’ she exclaimed. Her eyes were sly.
He flung his rings onto the floor and slid his hand between her legs. ‘You’re lying,’ he whispered. ‘Your palfrey is so hot she burns me.’
They held each other for a moment kissing, stroking the soles of their feet against each other’s. Because she was already far gone in pregnancy, and obviously tired, he was restrained. He asked, ‘Does this position please you?’ and ‘Is it better if you lie like that?’ He cradled her head in the crook of his arm, entering her with slow thrusts. ‘Would you like goose grease? It may be easier up the back.’
‘You’re too big,’ she murmured.
‘I’ll enter as timidly as a tiny mousie.’
‘Your mousie, my Lord, is the size of …’ she laughed.
When her breathing quickened and she moaned in pleasure he gave a yell of joy.
‘How thrilling is England’s King!’ Eleanor gasped.
He licked inside her ears. ‘How beautiful is her Queen. Our subjects were dumbstruck. You didn’t understand what they said.’ His eyes, resting on her face, glistened with tenderness. ‘They love you. As do I.’
He’s so in need of affection he’d declare love to a whore he dragged into an alley and had up against a wall, she thought. She smiled and brushed hair from his forehead. ‘May we always love each other.’
‘May the Almighty bless that prayer … and mine.’
‘Yours?’
‘I need two thousand marks.’
She groaned. ‘I should have known it!’
‘So it’s no surprise – and you’re happy to give it to me because you love me. Your quinny does. It’s as hot …’ He grabbed her again, refusing to allow her to struggle off the bed before she had promised the money. They went together to a corner of the chamber where parchment and writing tools were kept.
She wrote, ‘I, Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine and by the Grace of God Queen of England, order that two thousand silver marks be removed from my treasury in Poitiers.’ She then wrote it a second time. Henry slashed the parchment in two with his dagger and rang for the captain of his guard. ‘Take this to the Jews. Now. Tonight. This second one goes immediately to Poitiers.’
When the door closed he turned to her, again with gentle eyes. ‘Allow me to thank you,’ he murmured as he kissed the inside of her wrist, drawing her towards a settee. ‘Maybe if you lie back on this cushion and open your legs I’ll be able to see our next baby.’
She was ready to leave for her own apartment when she remembered the Archdeacon’s jump. Henry was stroking her belly and trying to push the pink bud of her popped navel back inside its little cave, shoving at it with his tongue. He stopped abruptly. ‘You’re sure it was he, not York, who jumped? York is a scoundrel.’
‘I’m positive it was the Archdeacon. You know when a hound is asleep and is surprised by a noise? It wakes with a bark. Sometimes a jump. It was like that. As if something had startled him.’
His playfulness evaporated. ‘Where was he standing?’
‘Directly beside me, holding the pall. A tall Gallic-looking man with a large nose and girl’s eyes.’
As soon as she’d spoken, she regretted spoiling the mood of their first night as monarchs.
‘The cur interrupted my coronation speech by ringing that bell,’ Henry exploded.
‘I was horrified.’
‘He dared to draw attention to himself. He dared to suggest that I, the King, was unable to control my subjects. From where I was standing I saw my Normans and Anjevins reach for their swords. You didn’t notice. Women aren’t trained to watch for a warrior’s hand moving to his hip.’
Only by agreeing with everything he says can I fuel his anger until it burns itself out, she thought. ‘No, I didn’t see that. But ringing the bell was disgraceful.’
‘Gilbert Foliot, my kinsman and a bishop I respect, warned me he’s from parents who came from Bec. On arrival in England they Anglicised their name to curry favour among the Londoners. He’s ravenous in ambition and greed. When he was a financier he was called Oily Tom. I tell you, wife, if the circumstance had been different, I’d have knocked him to the ground. Theobald and my mother pressure me to make him Chancellor. I won’t. Not after today.’
He’s working himself into a black rage. ‘My darling, he is, as you say, a man of no rank and therefore no manners.’
‘No manners plus social ambition means no morals,’ Henry muttered. The fire had banked to a smoulder that cast a darkened glow over his triumphant day. But suddenly his mood brightened with mischief. He began to knead her breasts and twirl his tongue around her nipples.
‘Henry, you’re a summer storm.’
‘Maybe I am. Meanwhile, you and I, Cousin, will make the House of Plantagenet greater than the House of Capet. Is that not our agreement?’
‘It is indeed.’
‘Big titties. Do you think …?’ His penis jabbed at her hip.
‘A quick gallop?’
At the door of his bedchamber he covered her face with kisses. ‘We begin our reign with joy in our hearts, do we not?’
‘We do, sweet King.’
What is joy for me? she wondered. It’s pleasure, excitement. And terror.
‘When are you due?’
‘February. I believe I have another prince for you. He kicked and tumbled with excitement just moments ago.’
‘I felt it. I hope it’s a prince.’
As she returned to her own apartment she noticed some piece of furniture had snagged a thread of her evening robe. She tried to pull it straight, but it snapped. When she entered her own chamber she handed the garment to Orianne. The girl wore her feelings nakedly. ‘It’s ruined, Highness,’ she said. She raised white-lashed eyes that trembled with fear.
It’s not my spoiled robe that frightens you, Eleanor thought. ‘Did someone say something that upset you, Buttercup?’
Orianne nodded.
‘What? What was said?’
The maid’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ve forgotten.’
Eleanor swayed on her feet with exhaustion. ‘Fetch me a cloak and we’ll go and kiss Willi goodnight.’
Orianne gave her a cloak and picked up a candle. Holding hands, the Queen and her maid set off through the wreckage of the palace.