Queen Isabelle’s talk of wood and iron was too pessimistic. In the treasure-chests that were still safeguarded at Swineshead she found a gold coronet, small enough to fit the head of a woman, or a child.
The moderates and royalists contributed towards an outfit for the dead king, and another for Prince Henry. John’s body was gutted and cleaned, then taken to Worcester Cathedral, where it was dressed in a cloth-of-gold tunic, the fingers gloved and curled around an inferior sceptre and a plain, burnished sword. Ironically, he was deprived of his high- heeled boots, and his feet shod with a pair of everyday sandals. As a pious touch, and possibly for concealment in the afterlife, his head was enclosed in a monk’s cowl.
As soon as his body had been interred, his son was collected from Devizes and taken under guard to Gloucester. The rebel leader FitzWalter was still about, and with him Prince Louis, so there was no time to waste. If the child Henry was not crowned as soon as possible, Louis might well proclaim himself king.
At Gloucester, the young prince responded in a shrill, clear voice as he was first knighted by William Marshal then crowned King of England. In a third, brief ceremony, the seventy-year-old Earl of Pembroke was appointed Regent of the Kingdom and given command of the army that would, it was hoped, drive Louis back across the Channel – minus his machines.
The death of John brought a number of barons to the court of King Henry III. Some of them spoke down to him, while others told him bluntly that their quarrel had been with his father, a stain on the land, but that they now wished to exchange a kiss of peace and pledge their allegiance.
Ever at the boy’s shoulder, Marshal assessed his behaviour and allowed himself a grunt of approval. He was sure he had been neither so calm nor so courageous at such an age, Nor, he knew, had John, and it led him to wonder if, after all the dead king had been right to suspect the Sparrowhawk. John hadenough bastards of his own, and Queen Isabelle was still one of the most attractive women around. It was a scurrilous thought, and Marshal would keep it to himself. Even so, he could not deny that young Henry’s demeanour owed nothing to the wolf.
The rebels had suffered a setback, but they were not yet ready to quit. In December, ignoring the weather, Prince Louis captured Hertford Castle and routed a force of royalists. The English barons were turning their cloaks more often than a bed sheet, and Marshal sought out his friend and neighbour, Gerard de Barri. Together they raised a force of seventy knights and almost two thousand men, selecting them for their love of England, military prowess and dislike of traitors. It was an elite contingent and, stealing from FitzWalter, Marshal christened it the Host of Right and the Crown. Assisted by the big-bellied Gerard, he drilled the troops throughout the winter. Then, in spring, he left the king with men he could trust and went in search of the rebels.
On 20th May, at Lincoln, the Host of Right and the Crown met the Host of God and Holy Church. Prince Louis was elsewhere, but FitzWalter rode at the head of his army, and Marshal at the head of his chosen force.
The fight for Lincoln lasted most of the day. The brutal and energetic FitzWalter was everywhere, howling his orders, surviving the death of his horse, snatching a double-headed axe as though he dreamed himself the Lionheart.
Against him went the corpulent Gerard de Barri and the hobbling William Marshal. But it was still Marshal who gave the lessons. He too had lost his horse, and went forward on foot, well supported by the Host of Right and the Crown. In that single action he isolated Robert FitzWalter, disarmed him as he had once disarmed the belligerent Ralf of Exoudun, then limped on alone to engage in single combat with a French champion, the Count of Perche.
The Frenchman cut Marshal on his bad leg, but the very deadness of the tendons allowed the earl to stay upright long enough to kill his adversary with a direct thrust at the neck.
The rebels discarded their weapons and, supported by Gerard de Barri, the Regent of England dragged himself across the grass to speak with FitzWalter.
‘A nice jab,’ the rebel commended. ‘God must have been looking elsewhere at the time.’
Breathing heavily, Marshal said, ‘I think not. I think it was meant to be seen. I think it was proof of what I told you, you bloody upstart. If you go against me do not do so with any expectation of success.’ Tired and sick of the blood-letting, he glanced at Gerard. ‘Take this man into a safe prison. And tell his French friend to go home.’
Prince Louis was not the only one to depart the kingdom. Queen Isabelle left, aware that there was no place for a dowager queen in the masculine court of England. She returned to Angoulême, struggled to reassert her authority against France and the neighbouring warlords, and eventually smothered her contempt for the man who had lost her, Hugh of Lusignan. More than that, she married him.
He was no longer the active suzerain, but she was better off in his bed than his dungeon, and they worked together to resist the intrusions of the Crown.
The Sparrowhawk would make a name for herself, not only as the one-time Queen of England, but as the woman who’d sent her servants to poison the King of France. Happily for that monarch – the grandson of Philip Augustus – the attempt was discovered, and the servants hanged from the gate. The Sparrowhawk attempted suicide, failed even in that, and was described by the writer Matthew Paris in his Chronica Majora as ‘rather a Jezebel than an Isabelle’.
The prisoner FitzWalter took the advice that Marshal gave him and became the crusader FitzWalter.
‘You can avoid the boils of imprisonment, upstart, and possibly save your soul. You love to fight, so put some purpose behind it, and fight the devils of Islam. We shall let you go, so long as you go abroad, but we shall not welcome you back until we have forgotten the part you played. Now make your decision. Will you take the cross of the Crusader, or fester here as you deserve?’
‘I’ll go away,’ FitzWalter said. ‘By the time I come back, you’ll very likely be dead.’
‘Very likely,’ Marshal echoed, ‘though the Saracens of the Holy Land are renowned for the accuracy of their shafts. Who can tell, upstart? You might never come back.’
The foreign prince had left. The dowager queen had gone. The rebel was on crusade. England breathed a pent-up sigh of relief and watched the child king grow to manhood.
But Marshal was not there to see it happen. He was taken ill in May 1219 and nursed in a manor he owned at Caversham, near Reading. It was not a sudden affliction, so much as the languishing of his powers, and death knocked very gently at his door.
He had sired five sons and five daughters, and they all came to see him. But more than William, Richard, Gilbert, Walter and Anselm; more than Matilda, Isabel, Sybille, Eve and Jeanne, the old man wished for his wife.
She came early, and stayed all the while, and he found the strength to discuss things they had done together throughout the years of their marriage, and to tell her stories she had heard many times before, yet pretended were new.
Distressing those who had assembled, he worried about his youngest daughter, wishing she had married a less insolent suzerain. It was too late to change things, though he made provision for her to receive two hundred marks to lift her spirits, then fifty marks a year for life. She was to keep this award to herself, he insisted, lest her husband squander it.
He was visited by the world; by foreigners who had no reason to know that he was ill, by young men who pleaded with him to deliver the buffet of knighthood, then helped balance the sword that he touched to their shoulder. Stephen Langton came as often as possible, and Gerard de Barri had to be encouraged to sleep.
The young King Henry arrived, pressing a child’s hand on an old man’s chest. He insisted that Marshal lay back; there was no call for homage. Then, impeccably, the boy delivered a speech of praise, in which he described the warlord as ‘the guide of irresolute monarchs, the leader of strange armies, the founder and father of an incomparable line’.
We never had a man like you,’ Henry told him, ‘we never did. I wish, Earl Marshal, I truly wish you had been king. Yes, I wish you had been dominant, hereabouts.’
He grizzled at the bedside, and was gently led away, leaving the chamber empty for Isabel de Clare.
It’s an odd feeling,’ Marshal told his wife. ‘I’m in no pain, though the strength exudes from my body.’
I heard what the king said to you,’ Isabel murmured. ‘He spoke nothing but the truth.’ She turned away sharply, blinded by tears, and Marshal growled, ‘Kiss me, belle amie,’ and then more urgently, shouting in extremis, ‘It’s the last time! Embrace me now!’
She leaned forward, sensing some movement in his lips. Or so she would ever believe.