“And the French have always liked to make trouble for the English!” Raoul observed. “Maybe the King should have forbidden Young Henry to go to Paris.”
Eleanor agreed. “Maybe he does not wish to offend Louis,” she said. “After all, Marguerite is Louis’s daughter. But I think it is folly for them to go to the French court now.”
Soon it became clear that the situation was worse than she could ever have expected. In his next letter, her son informed her that before setting out for Paris, he had visited his father in Normandy and once more demanded to be given his rightful inheritance. But Henry had again been adamant in his refusal. “A deadly hatred has sprung up between us,” the young man confided. “My father has not only taken away my will, but has filched something of my lordship.” There was a palpable sense of grievance in his words—and it was entirely justified, Eleanor felt.
Her anger against her husband was mounting. How could he be so blind? It was unfair and unjust, the way he was treating their son—and it could be disastrous in the longer term. She almost hoped Louis would do something to provoke Henry into realizing that he was acting destructively and forfeiting the love of his heir.
She wondered if there was anything that she herself could do to stop it. She felt so helpless, so impotent—and so frustrated!
Chinon, 1172
Christmas had arrived. Eleanor was keeping the festival with Henry at Chinon, and their three oldest sons had been invited. The King greeted her with unexpected warmth and one of his bearlike hugs, and complimented her on her rich attire. It was the green Byzantine robe she had worn in the years of their passion, when the mere sight of her dressed in her finery had been sufficient to inflame his desire, but he seemed to have forgotten all that.
She had learned not to let herself get upset at his fitful interest in her; they were, after all, meant to be separated. She soon saw that, for all his bonhomie, put on for the season, Henry remained preoccupied with his own private demons and was impatient with everyone, and she suspected that he was building up to yet another confrontation with the Young King.
“I summoned Young Henry back from Paris,” he told her. “My spies warned me that Louis was cozening him to demand his share of my dominions. I put a stop to that immediately!”
“I am glad that our son is coming here,” Eleanor said, trying tactfully to convey to Henry that there was more to this situation than a power struggle. “I have not seen him for many months. And Marguerite has always been like a daughter to me.”
But the Young King did not come. He sent word to say that his friend, Eleanor’s warlike troubadour Bertran de Born, had invited him to his castle at Hautfort, whither Young Henry had extravagantly summoned all the knights in Normandy named William to feast with him.
Henry exploded. “God’s blood! Is there no end to the cub’s stupidity? Of all the pointless, frivolous things to do! What is he thinking of? And as for Bertran de Born, as you should know, he is a dangerous troublemaker.”
“Henry.” Eleanor laid a calm hand on his shoulders and looked directly into his purple-veined face. “Our son indulges in frivolous and pointless pursuits because you force him to. His whole life is frivolous and pointless. You have made him a king, yet you allow him no kingly power, so the whole exercise was in vain. You keep him short of money and curtail his pleasures; you insist on appointing all the members of his household. You even dictated when he could sleep with his wife, who has been ripe for the marriage bed these past two years, as we both know. Henry, before it is too late, let him be the king he wants to be. Then he can prove his true worth. He needs to cut his teeth before he can rule an empire.”
The King stared at her as if she were mad, and shook her off angrily. Then she realized that he was looking beyond her, and she turned to see Richard and Geoffrey standing there. By the looks on their faces, they heard what had been said.
“Mother is right,” said Richard defiantly. “Why will you not give us any power, Father? I am Duke of Aquitaine and Geoffrey is Duke of Brittany, but they are empty titles.”
“Richard speaks truth, Father,” asserted Geoffrey.
“Shut up!” snapped Henry. “You’re only fourteen—what do you know? Are you all in this against me?”
“In what?” Eleanor inquired. “A conspiracy? How could you think that, Henry? I am looking to the future, and doing my best to prevent a rift between you and our sons. I believe they have a just grievance.”
“Yes, we do!” Richard and Geoffrey echoed.
Henry faced them, a man at bay. “It is written that every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and I cannot risk that happening. I have built up my empire, domain by domain, and I have spent most of my life fighting to hold it and keep it intact. One day, thanks to me, it will be your inheritance. One day. But if I now give England, Normandy, Anjou, and Maine to Henry, Aquitaine to you, Richard, and Brittany to Geoffrey, what will I be left with? I might as well retire to Fontevrault and become a monk!”
“We ask only that you share your power with us, Father, and give us some proper responsibilities,” Richard said.
“No,” Henry told him. “You are yet young and inexperienced. There will be time enough for that when you are older.”
“Henry, when you inherited Normandy, you were eighteen, only a year older than Young Henry is now,” Eleanor reminded him.
“Yes, but I did not consort with troubadours, or feast with unworthy knights just because they bore a name that took my fancy. I had to grow up quickly, in the midst of a civil war, and I learned early on to fight in the field and pit my wits against my mother’s adversaries. Thanks be to God, our sons have never had to deal with such difficulties.”
“Even so, you have overly protected them,” Eleanor retorted. “Now you must let them be men and stand on their own feet, and give them cause to be thankful to you. Heaven knows, their demands are not unreasonable.”
“I beg leave to differ. The courier who brought Young Henry’s message was my own man. He had heard the cub boasting that he ought by rights to reign alone, for at his coronation, my reign, as it were, had ceased.”
Eleanor’s sharp intake of breath pierced the stunned silence. The two boys looked at their feet, knowing themselves defeated by their brother’s thoughtless stupidity.
“That is the kind of poison that your Bertran de Born has been dripping in my son’s ear,” Henry snarled. “I wonder where he got the idea.”
“Not from me!” Eleanor cried hotly. “That is unjust! How could you think it?”
“You always take his part.”
“That is because you refuse to see things his way.” She was in a ferment, past caring if she offended or upset him. “And now, clearly, it is too late. It is you who have brought us to this pass, Henry. You can never admit that you are wrong. Look at what happened in Aquitaine. It’s the same with your vassals all over the empire. They complain that you are too heavy-handed, too authoritarian. That’s exactly what is wrong with your treatment of your heirs, and I will not stand by and see it!”
Henry hit her, hard, across the mouth. “That’s enough!” he roared.
“Mmmm!” she cried in pain, clapping her hand to her bleeding lips. This could not be happening, she thought. Henry had been that rarity among husbands: only once before had he used violence on her, the time she unwisely taunted him about Becket—and that had been only a slap. Thus his lashing out at her now, and drawing blood, was shocking in the extreme. It was bad enough that he had struck her—worse still that he had done it in front of their sons.