sea foods presented in so many guises. Anything that swam or crawled under water and could be hooked, trapped or netted had been turned into a culinary masterpiece; sturgeon, lamprey, crayfish, crab, eel, carp, pike, turbot, sole, prawns, roach, perch, chub – roasted, stewed, jellied, baked or fried, embellished with sauces or topped with pastry confections – culminating in a spectacular roasted porpoise riding on a sea of gilded pastry and crowned in real gold. It was all too much for me, but the great and good of the kingdom seated around me on the lower floor of the hall clearly relished it. From her royal dais, the new queen consort smiled and nodded at her subjects, admired the extraordinary skill of the cooks and, I noticed, consumed scarcely a morsel.
In the absence of her husband, seated beside the newly crowned queen was a pleasant-faced young man who also wore a crown; King James of Scotland who, although a monarch in his own right, did not outrank Catherine because he was a king without a kingdom. It was the first time they had met and his story was one which kept Catherine spellbound for much of the feast and earned her heartfelt sympathy. So much so that she regaled us with it at length the following day.
‘King James told me that there are warring factions in Scotland, just as there are in France and that his older brother, David, the heir to the throne, was starved to death in a castle dungeon by his uncle, the Duke of Albany. Fearing that James might also fall into Albany’s clutches, his father, King Robert, put him on a ship to France for safety. He was only twelve. Just think how frightened and lonely he must have been. And before he got near France, his ship was boarded by pirates off England. When they discovered his identity, they sold him to the English king, my own lord’s father, who then demanded that the Scots pay a vast ransom for him. When word of this was brought to King Robert, he fell into a seizure and died; so Albany achieved his evil ambition, took power in Scotland and the ransom has never been paid.’
At this point she gave me a meaningful look. She was thinking, as I was, of the parallels between this story and the civil wars between Burgundy and Orleans which had shaken the throne of France and led to her own marriage treaty, in which King Henry had supplanted her brother Charles as the Heir of France. However, she made no reference to it and continued her tale of the hostage king.
‘King James says the English have always been kind to him, particularly my own lord, the king’s grace, and the recent death of Albany has set the stage for the ransom to be paid. So, since under the rules of chivalry it is a queen’s prerogative to plead just causes, I mean to ask the King of England to instigate the King of Scots’ return to his kingdom.’ She clapped her hands with delight at the prospect of exerting her new powers.
‘Incidentally, little Joan,’ she turned to address Lady Joan Beaufort, who was gazing absent-mindedly out of the solar window, no doubt wishing she was galloping over wide-open spaces to the cry of the hunting horn, ‘King James made particular mention of you during the feast. He pointed you out to me, asked your name and who your parents were. I think you might have made a conquest there.’
Surprised at being addressed directly, Lady Joan went pink, but I think it was more from confusion at being caught day-dreaming than embarrassment at being singled out by the Scottish monarch. ‘Oh,’ was all she said, casting her eyes down as though she had no idea what the queen was talking about.
Catherine laughed. ‘I think most girls would be more excited by the attentions of a young, unmarried king than you appear to be! Perhaps if I told you he has recently purchased a new jet-black destrier from the Earl Marshal’s stud you might be a little more impressed?’
Joan’s eyes did light up at this. ‘Has he, your grace? How much did he pay for it?’
The queen spluttered with mingled mirth and exasperation. ‘I have no idea. You will have to ask him yourself, but you may have to wait a while because he departs tomorrow in the king’s train. King Henry fears that the Welsh border is too dangerous for ladies to visit at present, so he intends to go there first while we stay here at Westminster and make preparations to meet him further north. Belknap and Troutbeck, I want you to tell me all about the northern shires. Who are their leaders? What are their grievances and concerns? I am to join the king at a place called Kenil-wort.’ She stumbled slightly on the pronunciation of the English name and gazed enquiringly about the room. ‘Is that how you say it? Which of you can tell me about this place?’
Joanna Coucy was ready, as always, to air her knowledge. ‘It is the grandest of the Lancastrian palaces, your grace, situated right in the heart of England. I went there once with my father who had business at the duchy court. I believe the king spent his early childhood there. It was his mother’s favourite castle.’
‘Is that so, Coucy?’ Catherine beckoned to the girl. ‘Bring your stool nearer and reveal to me all you know about Kenil-wort and the king’s mother.’
‘Forgive me, your grace, but I believe it is pronounced Kenilworth,’ remarked Coucy, smirking as she picked up her stool to carry it across the room, deftly dodging Eleanor Cobham’s suddenly outstretched foot. Observing this, her second attempt to capsize the big-headed Joanna, I decided it was probably fortunate that, with her coronation duties over, the tricky Damoiselle Cobham would be returning home to Sterborough the following day.
The queen’s procession arrived at Kenilworth at sunset. Seen through the mist rising off the surrounding lake, the castle seemed to float weightless before us, its tall red sandstone towers glowing in the sun’s dying rays like pillars of fire. We were cold and tired after a long day in the saddle, but the magnificent spectacle imbued us with a new energy and the whole column of riders broke simultaneously into a brisk canter which even I, novice horsewoman that I was, found unexpectedly invigorating, especially as the chill March breeze had stiffened my limbs and, despite my riding gloves, almost frozen my fingers to the reins.
I had been to a few castles in my time, but I had never seen one quite like Kenilworth. Even at a distance it gave the impression of a palace rather than a fortress, for its towers were not crenellated, its curtain wall was barely eight-foot high and you could see the sun glinting off scores of delicate glass panes in huge mullioned windows. As we trotted through the first gatehouse to enter the long causeway across the lake, I realised the reason for the lack of apparent defences. Those fine windows were never going to be shattered by a bombardment, for not even King Henry’s vast new German cannons were capable of hurling a missile that far and getting scaling ladders and men across the lake would take a flotilla of boats which would simply not be available at this inland location. The causeway was the only dry access to the castle and it was fiercely fortified with stout stone barbicans and gatehouses at both ends, which fortunately stood open to our cavalcade. I learned later that the causeway was in fact a dam, built in order to flood the land around Kenilworth and create a huge lake. In that misty pink sunset, with a group of swans trailing wedge-shaped ripples over the glassy water, it looked to me like the legendary lake of Avalon and when a solitary boat with a crimson sail emerged through the mist, moving slowly towards the apparently floating castle, it might have been carrying King Arthur to his final resting place.
Our accommodation at Kenilworth was the best we had experienced since leaving the Hôtel de St Pol in Paris over two years before. The principal living chambers were on the first floor of a tower set behind the spectacular great hall, where the master-mason had deployed a unique system of heavy oak rafters, permitting a wide, cathedral-like space without any of the usual pillars needed to support the roof above. It reminded me of Westminster Hall, where Catherine’s coronation feast had been held, but Walter Vintner, my fount of English history, told me that the Westminster roof was actually a copy of the Kenilworth design. It was this fact that really brought home to me how rich and powerful King Henry’s grandfather, John of Gaunt, had been as Duke of Lancaster, for it was he
