The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [246]
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I wish that could have been true. I think that is the only time I can recall when John acted with good sense, for it is no use winning if one does not know what to do with victory.
He forgot that those men he had captured were noblemen. They had been defeated in battle and it was the mark of a good general that he treat honorable enemies with respect. In war a good leader is fierce; in victory he is magnanimous.
How elated John was to survey his prisoners: Arthur who would take his throne; Hugh le Brun who would have taken his bride. His great desire was to humiliate them.
He acquired farm carts in which cattle were carried from place to place. He chained and fettered his prisoners and forced them to stand in the carts with their faces close to the beasts’ tails as an added insult. John was sadistic by nature. I had long realized that. These prisoners, who were of the noblest families, including his own nephew, were to be paraded through the streets and taken to various places selected for them.
The two he must have had a special delight in humiliating were Arthur and Hugh le Brun. Hugh was tall and handsome; John was far from that. And this was the manner in which he treated his rivals.
He was foolish. He did not see the disgust on the people’s faces or, if he did, ignored it. He did not realize that these people were making up their minds that they would not willingly have such a man to rule over them if he could behave so to their noblemen—many of them members of their own families.
Hugh le Brun was sent to Caen; many others were sent to England and imprisoned in Corfe Castle. Arthur was taken to Falaise.
I had tried to reason with John. He smiled and nodded but I knew he was not listening. I could not warn him; others had tried to. I knew that William Marshal was completely shocked by this treatment of the prisoners and had tried to instill in him the folly of such conduct.
I think I knew at that moment of victory that all was lost.
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I stayed in Poitiers. I must if I were to hold the country together. I knew that they were going to reject John. Philip Augustus would know it too. John might have Arthur but he was on the way to defeat, and he did not seem to be aware of his precarious position. He was so enamored of Isabella that he stayed in bed with her until dinnertime. This passionate relationship between them was the talk of the Court. At least, I thought, there will be children.
John neglected his duties—and Philip Augustus was one to take advantage of that. He felt his way cautiously. He made leisurely progress through the country, taking castles as he went. There was little opposition. Nobody wanted to be ruled by John. There was nothing I could do. While I remained in Poitiers, Aquitaine would be faithful to me as long as I lived, but that would not be forever.
And then. . . ?
I had to watch events and see John plunge farther and farther into disaster.
The Lusignans offered a heavy ransom for Hugh le Brun, and foolishly John accepted it, so freeing him and adding to his dangerous enemies.
There was Arthur. What became of Arthur is a mystery. There have been many rumors. There is one story that Hubert de Burgh, the castellan of the castle, was ordered by John to castrate him and put out his eyes and that Hubert found himself unable to perform this dastardly deed. He hid Arthur and told John that he had died while the foul deed was being done and that he had buried him in the precincts of the castle. John, it seemed, was satisfied.
The subject of Arthur would not die down. Where was he? people were asking, including Arthur’s immediate family and the King of France. Suspicion turned on John. Rumor was rife, and John began to be worried. Arthur had disappeared. He was presumed dead, and John was the suspect.
John affected great sorrow, and Hubert de Burgh, not knowing how to deal with such a situation and wondering how he was going to keep Arthur concealed forever, confessed to John that he had not carried out his orders and that Arthur still lived in a secret room in the castle. John assumed