John was delighted when he knew.
‘People have been murmuring,’ he said. ‘They’ve been saying we couldn’t get children and that it was God’s punishment because we were too fond of the preliminary act.’ He laughed aloud. ‘They were sniggering about us, my love, when we lay abed till dinner time. Remember those days?’
‘I remember them well.’
‘And no child to show for them! That was strange, they said. They can say that no longer.’
‘Do you think it will be a boy?’
‘Of a certainty,’ said John. ‘The first of many.’
‘Not too many,’ Isabella reminded him. ‘Your father had too many and look what happened to some of them …’ She looked at him slyly. ‘And their offspring.’
He flushed with sudden anger. He did not like to remember that scene in Rouen Castle when he had looked down at the still figure of his rival nephew; nor did he like to think of himself and the mute carrying the body down to the river. Could he trust the mute? What could the man say when he had been so conveniently deprived of his tongue, which was the very reason John had used his services on that occasion.
No matter how careful one was, such news seeped out sometimes. Where is Arthur? was a question which was going to be asked for some time to come and there was one who would be determined to find the true answer: Philip of France.
Isabella should not have reminded him. She had always been over-saucy, perhaps because he had been so enamoured of her, but he was less so now. Other women could please him too, although oddly enough he still preferred her. But he would brook no insolence from her.
‘People should learn their lessons,’ he growled.
She folded her hands together and raised her eyes piously to the ceiling. ‘’Twould be good for us all to do that,’ she observed meekly enough but with sly insinuations.
No matter for now, he thought. She was comely; and he could still say that he was well pleased with his marriage. If she gave him a son, he would be delighted.
Success on the Continent – for not even his worst enemies could say he had not made progress – and an heir at last!
She was only twenty. There were years of childbearing ahead of her.
Yes, he was as delighted as ever with Isabella.
Isabella was six months pregnant when news came that Innocent had consecrated Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury.
John laughed sneeringly when he heard and told Isabella that Innocent could have saved himself the trouble, for the election was not going to be recognised in England. He’d not have Langton set foot on his shores, and by God’s feet and toes as well, he’d put John de Grey in the Primate’s chair.
It was a different matter when the Pope sent instructions to the leading churchmen of England and Wales reminding them of their duty first to the Church; and he named three of them, William, Bishop of London, Eustace, Bishop of Ely, and Mauger, Bishop of Worcester – three of the most important – to approach the King and remind him also of his duty.
It was three very apprehensive bishops who faced John.
He shouted at them: ‘Come, my good Bishops, you have come to talk to me. You come straight from your master and I believe you are very bold when you are not in my presence. What ails you now that you tremble?’
‘My lord,’ said William of London, ‘we come on the orders of the Pope.’
‘The Pope,’ screamed John. ‘He is no friend to me, and nor are those who value his friendship more than mine.’
‘We would beg of you, my lord,’ said Eustace of Ely, ‘to listen to His Holiness’s commands.’
‘It is a king who commands in this country, Bishop,’ retorted John.
‘In all matters temporal,’ Mauger of Worcester reminded him.
‘In all matters,’ snarled John.
‘My lord,’ said the Bishop of Ely, ‘if you would but receive Stephen Langton and give the monks permission to return …’
‘You are mad,’ cried the King. ‘Do you think that I will allow myself to be so treated? You come to threaten me. Is that so?’
‘Nay, nay,’ cried the bishops in unison. ‘We but come to tell you the wishes of the Pope.’
‘That he will lay an interdict on my kingdom. Is that what you would say?’
‘I fear, my lord,’ said the Bishop of London, ‘that if you will not accept Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury and allow the monks to return there, the Pope will put the country under interdict.’
‘As I said, as I said. And let me tell you this.’ John narrowed his eyes and his looks were venomous. ‘If any priest under my rule should dare to obey the Pope in this matter, I shall take his property from him and send him a beggar to his master the Pope since it will be clear to me that he is no servant of mine and it is meet that he should go to his master.’
‘His Holiness will not allow the matter to rest,’ began Eustace.
‘No, he will send his envoys with dire threats, I know that. And I shall let him know who is ruler here. Not him, he must understand, but the King. Tell him this … you who serve him so well … that if I catch any of his envoys on my land I shall send them back to their master … aye, and not in quite the same condition as that in which they came. They’ll grope their way back for they’ll have no eyes to see with and I’ll slit a nose or two for good measure.’
‘My lord, I beg of you, remember that these messengers would come from His Holiness.’
‘Remember it. Remember it. Do you think I should forget? It is for that reason that I shall make them very sorry they ever came this way. As for you, my lord Bishops, I have endured your company too long. It maddens me. It sickens me. Get out … while you are still in possession of your organs, for by God’s ears, if you are not gone from my sight in the next few minutes I shall call my guards and you will be shown what happens to men in this realm who dare defy me.’
They could see that he meant it, for the temper was beginning to flow over.
They bowed and hurried out.
John burst into loud laughter as he watched them.
‘Farewell, my brave Bishops,’ he shouted.
Isabella was lying in at the castle at Winchester which had been built by the Conqueror.
It was October and the leaves of the trees were turning russet, red and bronze. She lay in her bed and waited for her child to be born, fearful yet expectant, asking, ‘Will it be a boy or a girl?’
Isabella would prefer a boy, of course, but it would be amusing to have a daughter. How she would enjoy dressing a girl! Would she be beautiful like herself or resemble John who was scarcely that?
John was getting old now, having lived for forty years. That mattered little. She was but twenty. It was perhaps well that she was having a child, for she was no longer as eager for John’s company as she had once been. Sensual in the extreme she still was – but not for John. During her pregnancy she had been thinking a great deal of the child and like most women she had changed a little. But once the child was born those desires which had been so important to her would return – but they would not be for John.
But the child was the main concern now. Here she was in this ancient town of Winchester where it was fitting that heirs to the throne should be born – Winchester, one of the oldest towns of the country. The Early Britons had called it Caer Gwent or the White City; then the Romans had come and named it Venta Belgarum and it was the Saxons who afterwards called it Witanceaster which had become Winchester.
The original castle was said to have been founded by King Arthur himself and it was in this city that when the people were weary of the Danish occupation the order had gone out that all good Saxon women should take a Danish lover and on a certain night each should, as he lay in bed beside her, cut either her lover’s throat or his hamstrings. That had been the order of Ethelred the Unready. She could imagine John’s giving such an order.