Hammer of the Scots by Jean Plaidy

Author:Jean Plaidy [Plaidy, Jean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical
ISBN: 9780099510284
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1979-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

That December the three princesses set out for Glastonbury. The King and Queen had arranged this journey for them before they had left for the Continent. It was well, said the King, for the people to realise the piety of the royal family and the three girls were of an age now to show the country that they were devout. Money would have to be raised for their marriages when the King returned to England, for he could not keep all his daughters in the single state for ever. So let the people see what good pious girls they were.

Glastonbury was the most important of the abbeys because it held the bones reputed to be those of King Arthur; and since that monarch had been much discussed at the time of Llewellyn’s uprising he was anxious to remind the people that Arthur did not belong to the Welsh any more than the English.

The fact that the princesses travelled in winter made their pilgrimage more commendable for it was no luxury to make their way through the countryside during the season of snow and frost, and even if it was not cold enough for that there were rain and muddy roads to contend with.

So they set out and they did not ride on horseback but in chariots and in the midst of a large cavalcade of knights, ladies and attendants of all ranks.

Wherever they went the people came out to welcome them. There was no doubt that the reigning King and Queen were more popular than their predecessors had been.

They were warmly greeted in all the abbeys at which they called and with good reason for it was the recognised custom that royal visitors meant royal gifts.

When they had paid their respects to the bones at Glastonbury they started on their homeward journey by calling at the Abbey of Cerne in Dorsetshire that they might pay homage to the shrine of St Ethelwold. They spent Christmas in Exeter where they stayed until mid-January and it was February by the time they were back in Westminster.

It was at this time that there was a violent quarrel between Joanna and Egis de Audenarde when he told her blankly that he could advance her no more money. She had spent so much more than her allowance that he must stop it forthwith until what she had bought was paid for.

This was one of the occasions when Joanna’s temper would not be controlled. That she, a Princess of England, should be dictated to by one of her father’s servants – a clerk, nothing more – was intolerable to her.

‘I will spend as I will, sir,’ she cried.

‘Not of the King’s monies, my lady.’

‘I think you forget to whom you speak,’ she flashed.

‘My lady, you forget that I am in charge of the King’s accounts and it is his orders I must obey.’

‘Get from my sight,’ she shouted. ‘I will have no more of you. From this moment you are no more concerned with my affairs.’

De Audenarde bowed low.

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