The Princess Eleanor flung back her long yellow hair and ran to her grandmother, flinging her arms about her.
The Queen stroked the child’s hair. Of course she should have demanded the respect due to her but she would rather have this spontaneous show of affection from them than cold ceremony any day. Although there was no one who demanded the respect due to her rank more strongly than she did in public, in her family circle there was nothing but softness.
She held out a hand to Henry who was coming to her more slowly than his sister.
‘I am well, my lady, but Henry has been sick,’ said the Princess.
Quivers of alarm beset the Queen.
‘Henry, my darling child …’
‘Henry is always sick,’ said the Princess Eleanor somewhat disparagingly.
The little boy looked up at his grandmother appealingly. ‘I cannot help it, my lady. I try not to be.’
She picked him up and held him against her. How frail he was! This was how John went. What was wrong that a man like Edward could not get healthy boys? She and Henry had produced Edward – and surely a finer specimen of manhood did not exist.
She kissed the child. ‘I am going to make you well,’ she promised.
He put his arms about her neck and returned her kiss. ‘Then I shall run faster than anyone. I shall hunt and take my falcon into the forest.’
‘Yes, my love, so you shall, and when your father comes home he will find you grown into a tall and handsome prince.’
‘When is he coming home?’ asked the Princess.
‘Now that is what I have come to tell you. He is on his way. Very soon your father and mother will be here.’
The children looked very solemn. They had vague memories of a handsome golden man, the biggest man in the world, a giant. He had been strong and put them on his shoulders and carried them round the room. Henry had been a little frightened of him. Then there was their mother – memories of a soft voice, gentle hands. Henry had cried a good deal when she went away.
‘When, when …?’ demanded the Princess and Henry waited breathlessly for the answer.
The Queen Mother sat down and took Henry on her lap while Eleanor took a stool at their grandmother’s feet.
‘Will our grandfather come back with him?’ asked Henry.
‘Of course he won’t!’ cried the Princess scornfully. ‘He has gone to Heaven, hasn’t he, my lady? He went up to be with our brother John. People don’t come back from Heaven, do they, my lady?’
‘Why don’t they?’ asked Henry.
‘Because it’s so much better there of course,’ retorted the knowledgeable Eleanor.
‘I think my grandfather would come back to see me if he knew how much I ask him to.’
The Queen felt she must stop their innocent chatter or she would be unable to hold back her tears.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘you must prepare yourself for the return of the King and Queen.’
She told them as she had told them before – but they never tired of hearing it – how their father had gone to the Holy Land to fight for God and the Cross and their mother had gone with him and how, when he returned, because their dear grandfather was in Heaven, the people wanted to put the crown on his head.
‘And you, my little love, are heir to the throne so we have to build you up to be King.’
Henry looked alarmed. ‘When shall I have to be King?’
‘Not until you are a man and praise God not until a long time after that. But you must be ready when the time comes. You will learn to do everything better than anyone else can … as your father does. You will learn to be exactly like him.’
Henry remained puzzled and his grandmother kissed his forehead.
‘Don’t be alarmed, little one. I shall be there to show you.’
‘I’ll show him too,’ said the Princess, nestling close to her grandmother.
How adorable they were! And how alarmed was the Queen as she held the too-small body protectively in her arms.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘we must be ready to greet the King. We shall go to Dover to meet his ship, for the first thing he will wish to see when he steps onto the English soil will be his family. Oh, you are going to have a wonderful time. There will be a coronation … which neither of you have ever seen. Oh, I promise you life will be wonderful when King Edward comes home.’
Queen Eleanor stood beside Edward her husband as the ship brought them nearer and nearer to the coast. The white cliffs were visible now and Edward was obviously clearly moved by the sight of them.
He put his arm about her and said, ‘Soon you will see the castle. The key to England they call it. And you’ll understand why. There it stands … offering a menace to our enemies but a welcome to us. It is time we came home.’
She agreed. She always agreed with Edward. Taller than most men so that the majority of them came only to his shoulders, with his thatch of bright fair hair which was growing a little darker as he grew older, but which when she first knew him had been almost white, with his long legs and arms and magnificent physique inherited from his Norman ancestors, and which had earned him the name of Longshanks, he was godlike. The fact that one eye drooped a little – as his father’s had done, although this was not so noticeable in Edward as it had been in King Henry – gave him a slightly sinister look which she believed had stood him in good stead when he was dealing with his enemies. When Edward stood among other men he could be selected without question as the King and the leader. Edward was magnificent and she often wondered how she – little Eleanor of Castile – should have come to be the wife of such a glorious creature.
From the moment she had seen him she had been struck with wonder. Edward had been only fifteen years old then and she nearly five years younger. Much too young for marriage but royal princes and princesses were often betrothed at an early age. That was why very often the marriages did not take place. She knew that her family had not expected the English King – Edward’s father – to honour his pledges. Strangely enough her mother had been betrothed to Edward’s father but he had set her aside in order to marry Eleanor of Provence – now her formidable mother-in-law – and her grandmother was that Alice of France who had been sent to England to marry Richard Coeur de Lion, and about whom there had been a great scandal because when she was only a child Henry II had seduced her and kept her as his mistress for years so that she never married Coeur de Lion after all. So the English royal family had not a very good reputation for honouring its pledges. However, she was told that if the marriage did take place it would be a very grand one. She was after all only the half-sister of the King of Castile. Her father Ferdinand, the King of that country, had been old when he married her mother – who had been kept dangling with hopes of Henry of England – and he already had a son, Alfonso, so the marriage with England was highly desirable.
Joanna, her mother, was determined that her daughter should not share her fate and between them she and Alfonso had arranged that the betrothal should take place at Burgos and had declared that if Edward was not at Burgos to receive the hand of his bride by a certain date the contract should be set aside.
Somewhat to the astonishment of the Castilians Edward was there at the appointed time and the youthful Eleanor, on seeing her prospective bridegroom, was so overcome with admiration that she determined to grow up quickly, and learn all she could to be worthy of him.