He wondered vaguely about Heaven. Perhaps he would like to go there and join Edward. Edward had always been boasting about how much cleverer he was than Richard, how he could ride better and jump and run. No, he preferred England to Heaven. He had a notion that he would be far more important in England than he would in Heaven.
It was interesting to be on board. Sir Simon was close to him and he plied him with questions. He wanted to know everything about the ship. Sir Simon always answered his questions. He liked an interest to be taken in everything.
His father and mother went below to lie down, for the sea was wild. The captain said it was going to be a rough journey.
Sir Simon looked at Richard and said: ‘Will you face the elements or would you like to go below and lie down?’
Richard was a little afraid but he felt that he was expected to say that he would remain on deck with Simon so he did so.
It was a terrifying journey. The water washed over the deck. He was wet and cold but Simon remained on deck and so Richard was with him.
‘If your stomach’s strong enough fresh air is the best thing in seas like this,’ Sir Simon told him.
His hand grasped firmly in that of Simon he watched the pounding seas and when they had left the Bay of Biscay behind them and had turned into the English Channel the wild winds abated a little.
‘Here is the coast of England, my lord.’
Richard stared at it. It was very green, he noticed, and there came to him then an overwhelming pride because this was the country his grandfather ruled and his father would rule one day … and far far ahead he himself would reign over it.
They dropped anchor in Southampton Harbour. It was very cold and there was snow on the ground. Even so a crowd of people stood on the shore watching their arrival.
Richard was now beside his mother who was supervising the men who were carrying the litter. That was for his father. The rough sea voyage had not suited him and he was too sick to walk.
He had wanted to but Joan had said he was going to do no such thing. She had made him see that it would not do for the people to see a poor sick man stagger ashore. It was far more fitting that he should be carried in his litter.
‘It is a very cold place,’ said Richard to Simon.
‘That’s because it is winter. You wait until the summer comes, and the spring will soon be here. Then the trees will be covered in buds and the birds go wild with joy. The spring is never anywhere else as it is in England.’
Richard looked up at the dark sky and the royal banners which fluttered rather dismally, damp as they were.
When his father’s litter appeared the people cheered enthusiastically and there were cries of: ‘Long live the Black Prince.’
His father waved his hand in acknowledgement of the cheers.
‘You’ll keep well now you’ve come home, my lord,’ shouted one man. ‘God bless you.’
It was clear that the people here loved his father very much.
Now he came ashore holding his mother’s hand. The people looked at him and then suddenly a loud cheer went up.
‘Long live the little Prince. Long live Richard of Bordeaux.’
His spirits were suddenly lifted. He felt a wave of ecstatic happiness pass over him.
They loved him too. He had never heard anything that thrilled him so much as the cheers of the crowd.
Suddenly he was glad that Edward was in Heaven – for he knew that if Edward had been here he would have been the one they cheered. He was glad that he had come to England. He was glad that one day he would be King of this land. He loved it from that moment because it belonged to him and one day he would be its King.
John of Gaunt watched the cog sail away with an emotion which it was not easy to analyse. The death of his nephew had stunned him almost as much as it had the boy’s parents, but for a different reason.
One of the heirs to the throne had been removed at a sudden stroke. Of course there was another to step into his place – that delicate fair-haired boy who, one imagined, would have been the one to go if any.
It was an exciting prospect which lay now before him. His father was ageing fast and his pursuit of Alice Perrers could not be good for his health; his brother the Black Prince was very sick; then there was this child, Richard of Bordeaux. Lionel had a daughter who had been married to the Earl of March; there would be some who would say she came before John of Gaunt. But a girl …and Richard a child … Sometimes he thought it an exciting prospect; at others it depressed him.
In the meantime here he was in Aquitaine – his brother’s lieutenant. It might well be that his brother would never be well enough to return and his future lay here on the continent.
Often he thought of Catherine. He could send for her, perhaps. But could he? The governess of his children, the wife of one of his squires who was serving now in the army!
Life was full of promise yet it was only promise. He wanted fulfilment.
First he must arrange the funeral of his nephew. Joan had wanted it to take place after they had left partly because she had been eager to get Edward home to England and partly because she feared that to attend it would bring such overpowering grief to the Prince that it would impair his health further.
It was a ceremonial occasion but those who would have felt real grief were no longer there.
No sooner was it over than news was brought to him that Montpoint in Périgord had surrendered to the French. He must therefore set out to regain the place. This occupied him for several weeks and it was not until the end of February that he had regained the town.
When he returned to Bordeaux it was clear to him and to everyone else that his heart was not in the task which had been assigned to him. He was holding Aquitaine for Edward. He wanted to rule in his own right not through another.
His brother, Edmund of Langley, joined him at Bordeaux and there also were Constanza and Isabella, the two daughters of Pedro the Cruel.
The spring had come. The weather was warm and the two brothers rode out to hunt or merely to enjoy the countryside with the two young women.
Constanza was serious minded. Her great object was to break out of exile and regain the crown of Castile which she declared was hers by right.
‘And so it is,’ agreed John, ‘and so should it be yours. This bastard Henry should be deposed and you should be welcomed back.’
‘He will never leave unless he is forced to,’ said Constanza. ‘If only I had the money to raise an army … I think the people would be with me. Surely they would wish to see the legitimate heir on the throne.’
John pondered this. He had been playing with the idea of suggesting to his father and his brother that the Salic law be established in England. It existed in France. That was why Edward was having to fight for the crown. The crown of France came to him through his mother but because of this law he had been set aside. That was what the war was about. John was now thinking of Lionel’s daughter, Philippa, who unless the Salic law was introduced would come after Richard and before him in the claim to the English throne.
He realised that this law would be considered illogical and there was no hope of its being introduced in England when the very recognition of such a law would render null and void Edward’s claim to the throne of France.
So therefore as he saw it there was ageing Edward who could not last more than two or three years at the most; the Black Prince whose recurring sickness suggested he too might not be long for this world; then there was this four-year-old boy, Richard, rather delicate and in any case little more than a baby. Then Philippa, daughter of Lionel, married to the Earl of March who no doubt had his ambitions. These were the ones who stood in line before John of Gaunt.