Preparations for the King and Queen to leave for France were set in motion.
Before they left Edward paid a visit to his mother at Amesbury.
He found her peevish. She was not well, she said. She was restive. The monastic life was not for her although she realised the need to undertake it. She spent long hours lying on her bed and thinking about the glorious past. She wanted to talk about it to Edward when he came.
So he was now going to France. How well she remembered when she and his father had gone. And there had been that dreadful time when she had gone alone … a fugitive from those wicked men who held Henry a prisoner. ‘And you too, my son. Forget not that.’
He did not forget, Edward assured her. He remembered well how she had worked to raise an army.
‘Which you did not need because you escaped and went to rescue your father.’
‘Ah, but it was a brave effort you made. You are an unusual woman, Mother.’
She was pleased. ‘What days they were! Tragic days … but glorious somehow.’
‘We want no more such tragedy,’ said Edward.
‘Your father was a saint … a blessed saint.’
Edward could not agree to that so he remained silent.
‘There is something I must tell you. A man came to me not long ago. He was blind and one day when praying at your father’s tomb his sight was restored to him. Edward, your father was a saint. That proved it. I think we should have a church built for him … a monastery …’
‘My dear mother, this is nonsense.’
‘Nonsense! What do you mean? I tell you this man came to me. “I was blind,” he said, “and now I can see. Oh glory be to Saint Henry.” Those were his words.’
‘He has deceived you, my lady. He is looking for rewards, depend upon it. I’ll warrant he wants some shrine set up and he will be in charge of it, eh? And many will come and lay offerings at this shrine, much of which will find its way into his pocket.’
‘I am amazed. I tell you your father was a saint. Have not people been cured at the tomb of St Thomas à Becket?’
‘My father was not à Becket, Mother.’
‘You shock me. You disappoint me. You … his son.’
‘It is because I am his son that I know this to be false. We loved our father. He was good to his family, but he was not a saint and this man seeks to deceive you.’
‘So not only will you deny your father’s goodness but you insult me too. Please leave me. I wonder you trouble to come to me … since my opinion is so worthless you but waste time in conversing with me.’
‘My dear lady …’
‘Pray go,’ she said.
He shrugged his shoulders and, king though he was, he bowed and left her.
As he strode angrily from her apartment he met the Provincial of the Dominicans whom he knew to be a man of piety and learning and with whom he was on terms of friendship.
‘You have heard this tale of a man cured of his blindness at my father’s tomb?’ he asked.
The Dominican admitted that he had.
‘I tell you this: that man is a self-seeking scoundrel. There has been no miracle. As for my father I know enough of his justice to be sure that he would rather have torn out the eyes of this rascal when they were sound than to have given sight to such a scoundrel.’
The Dominican agreed with the King.
‘He is a man taking advantage of the Queen Mother’s piety,’ he replied.
Edward, however, could not leave the country on bad terms with his mother. He went back to her before he left.
She was delighted to see him, for she could no more bear to quarrel than he could.
‘Dear Mother,’ he said, ‘I am sorry for my abrupt departure.’
She embraced him. ‘We must not part in anger, my son. That is something which would be intolerable to me. You were in my thoughts all through the night. My little flaxen-haired baby! How proud I was of you. Your father too. Our firstborn and a beautiful son. Even the hateful Londoners and the Jews loved us for a while when you came.’
‘I like it not when any of our family are not on happy terms with each other.’
‘Dear Edward, I know I am an old woman now. The days have gone when I was listened to. Oh, when your dear father was here how different it was!’
‘Life must change for us all, Mother.’
‘But to have lost him … and then your dear sisters … Oh, I am a lonely old woman … of no account now.’
‘You will always be of account.’
‘To you, Edward?’
‘Always to me.’
He began to tell her of his plans for his daughters’ marriages and what he hoped to achieve in France. He had to stop her going over those incidents from the past which he had heard hundreds of times before.
But he was pleased to part on terms of affection. The bond between them was too firm to be broken because he had grown into a strong-minded man who would have his own way and say what he thought to be the truth and because she was a selfish old woman who could not believe that she had had her way because she possessed an uxorious husband who could deny her nothing, but thought it was because she was always right.
How did either of them know how long he would be away and what would happen in the meantime and whether they would ever see each other again?
Now that their parents were out of the country and the Queen Mother was in Amesbury the Princess Eleanor was the undoubted head of the family. She was twenty-four years of age and so a mature woman. There was such a difference between her age and that of the rest of the family for Joanna the next was sixteen and Margaret thirteen; poor ten-year-old Mary was in Amesbury; Elizabeth who had been born in Rhudlan was only six and Edward four.
It was true that Mary of Caernarvon, Edward’s Welsh nurse, guarded him like a dragon and put him right outside the Princess’s rule. He was a spoilt little boy anyway and thought the whole world had been created for him. Eleanor was angry that so much fuss should be made of him because he was a boy. And she would never forget either that merely by arriving he had ruined her dreams. It was true he was a handsome child – fair and tall for his age, very like his father had been. He was bright enough but already showed signs of indolence. Eleanor wondered what her father had been like when he was young Edward’s age. One day she would ask her grandmother, but the Queen Mother was a great romancer and coloured all stories from the past so glowingly that one was never sure how far one could believe her.
Elena, Lady de Gorges, who had been their governess for years was with them in the schoolroom still. Not that the Princess Eleanor was in the schoolroom, but now that her parents were absent she was a great deal with her sisters and brother and in that respect could say she was part of the establishment. She had her own of course and grand it was, for when her father was really looking on her as a possible heir to the throne she had been treated accordingly and he could hardly ask her to relinquish her state when Edward was born. Far from it. He was eager to show his darling that she was still as important to him – if not to the country – as she had ever been.
It was very rare, of course, for the daughter of a king to have reached the age of twenty-four without marriage. She doubted whether she would remain in a single state for ever. She knew that her father would see Alfonso of Aragon while he was away and it was very likely that some agreement would be reached.
She hoped not – fervently she hoped not. She wanted to stay in England, and she knew her father wanted her to.
‘I must see the King of Aragon,’ he had said when they parted. ‘But it may well be that nothing will come of it. My child, it would be a hard wrench if you ever had to leave us.’