The Plantagenet Prelude

She railed and stormed, but it was of no avail. They marched on, and in due course came to Jerusalem where King Baldwin warmly received them. This was Louis’s destination. Now he could say his prayers and receive absolution. The sin of Vitry could drop from his shoulders.

He should have felt exultant. But he did not. Constantly Eleonore made friction between them. Baldwin wished him to join in with plans for aggression against the infidel, and the peace he craved was as far off as ever.

He would stay in Jerusalem for a while, he declared.

Eleonore was restive.

‘What good do you do here?’ she demanded.

‘Don’t you feel the peace of the place? This is the Holy City. Here you and I will pray together for the strength and courage to make a new start.’

‘The new start I wish to make does not include you,’ retorted Eleonore.

She was furious. She could not get the perfections of Saladin out of her mind. She had given up hope now that he would bring an army to take her from her husband.

Of one thing she was certain. There was going to be a divorce from Louis. She would not rest until she had achieved that. And if she did not marry Saladin – which on more careful consideration seemed perhaps a reckless thing to do – there were other men in the world, young, virile rulers who would be delighted to get their hands on Eleonore...and Aquitaine.

She would find somone. But first she must put into effect her escape from Louis.

The days dragged on. Louis found great solace in the Holy City. Here, he was fond of pointing out, had trod those sacred feet. Here he was at peace. He wished that he could spend the rest of his days in the holy spot.

How he wished there need not be this continual talk of war, though he recognised the need to repel the infidel.

His ministers pointed out to him that it was unwise to leave his kingdom too long. His brother Robert was notoriously ambitious. The people had been loyal to Louis but memories were short and he had been away so long.

Eleonore was agitating to leave. She knew that there could be no satisfactory conclusion to their affairs while they were away. They must return to France and have the matter sorted out.

Still the months passed and when they had been in Jerusalem an entire year, Louis realised that he could delay no longer. He must return to his kingdom. Vessels were procured at Saint-Jean d’Acre and as the King of Sicily was at war with Greece his country seemed a good place for them to make for, on the way back to France.

Eleonore declared that she would not travel in the King’s ship but would have a ship of her own and travel with those who were her friends. The King could go with his entourage, she pointed out bitterly. Men such as the eunuch Galeran who seemed to please him so much.

Feeling it would be good to escape from her bitter tongue for a while, Louis agreed and they set sail in the month of July in their separate vessels. After the year in Jerusalem memories of Saladin were begi

Perhaps, thought Eleonore, in a way she had really loved Raymond.

That journey by sea from Saint-Jean d’Acre was one Eleonore would never forget. She had not believed there could have been such misery; as she lay in her bunk she wished that she could die. This was utter degradation and discomfort. Occasionally she thought cynically of the days in Paris when she had pla

She cursed Louis. He was the one who had had the idea that they should set out for the Holy Land. He was the one who had forced her to leave Antioch. But for him she would be there now in blissful comfort and exhilarating company.

Of one thing she was determined. She was going to divorce Louis.

On and on went the ship. Would the journey never end?

Often she believed that the vessel would sink and they would all be drowned. Sometimes she thought they might be taken by pirates and half hoped they would. Anything would be better than these days when there was nothing around them but the eternal sea.

She became ill and for days was delirious. At least, she thought afterwards, at those times I did not know where I was.

Her attendants despaired of her life, and when miraculously they finally reached Naples in safety she had to be carried ashore, so weak was she.

Louis had already arrived. He had passed through several adventures.

He sat by her couch in the palace which had been put at their disposal, and she could see that he was hoping she had changed her mind.

‘I feared you were lost at sea,’ he told her.

She smiled wanly and thought: I hoped you were. But she was too weak to indulge in vituperation.

‘I thought my end had come,’ he said, ‘when one of Manuel’s ships overtook us, boarded us, and I became a prisoner of the Greek Emperor.’

‘If you had joined with my uncle against him that would not have happened,’ she reminded him.

‘God was with me,’ went on Louis. ‘He made that clear when he sent the Sicilians to capture the Greek ship which was carrying me.’

‘So you became the prisoner of the Sicilians instead of the Greeks,’ she said coldly.

‘Indeed I was not. The King of Sicily treated me as an honoured guest.’

‘He had attacked the Greeks. He had seen that this was the wise thing to do...as Raymond did.’

‘Oh wars!’ said Louis. ‘Little good ever came of them.’

‘Except that kings gained their crowns through them and prevented others from taking them.’

‘The King of Sicily gave me ships that I might come to Naples and meet you here as we had arranged. It was God’s will that he should rescue me from the Greeks. Eleonore, we have suffered much, both of us. God has been good to us. Let us forget our differences.’

She turned her face to the wall.

‘We have a daughter,’ continued Louis. ‘We will have more children...sons. Eleonore, we must try to be good parents to our daughter. We must get a male heir. Let us start again.’

‘I am determined to be free,’ said Eleonore. ‘And while we are here we must go to Rome and see the Pope.’

Louis shook his head.

‘I had hoped,’ he said, ‘that in view of everything that has happened we might forget our differences.’

‘It is because of what has happened that I remember them,’ said Eleonore.

And Louis knew she was adamant.

Louis was bewildered. He was torn between two emotions. His love for Eleonore was one and the other his desire for a peaceful life.

His feelings astonished him. He could not understand the power Eleonore had over him. She with her sensuous demanding body might have been repulsive to a man of his aesthetic tastes. Not so. In her presence he felt stimulated and he had come to the conclusion that unhappy as she made him he was more so without her. He knew that if she had her way and there was a divorce, duty would demand that he married elsewhere. He did not want that. What he prayed for was a reconciliation with his wife. Yet he knew that if he could have escaped from this strange power she exerted, if he could have given himself up to a life of meditation and prayer he would have been a contented man. How ironical that there were men of ambition who longed above all things for a crown, while one such as himself who had had that crown thrust on him would have given a great deal to be able to pass it on to someone else.

Suger was writing urgent letters from Paris. He had heard of the scandals surrounding the Queen and the talk that a divorce had been suggested.

Did Louis understand the full implications of this? What of his daughter? If he were wise he would seek a reconciliation with the Queen and at least do nothing until he returned to Paris and discussed the situation with Suger himself.