The Hammer of the Scots Read Online Free Page A

together; when he had been ill – and oddly enough he had not been a strong child – the King with the Queen had been at his bedside. Matters of state could be neglected, important ministers made to wait in order that a sick child might be comforted. Never to see his father again! Never to talk with him! Never to stroll arm in arm with him in the palace gardens! Never to find comfort in that bond between them which only death had been able to break.
    The Sicilians had marvelled at him. He had such a short time earlier heard of the death of his eldest son but it had not affected him as deeply as the death of his father.
    ‘The loss of children can be repaired by the same God that gave them,’ he had said. ‘But when a man has lost a good father it is not in the course of nature for God to send him another.’
    And he knew of course that he must go home. He must comfort his sorrowing mother, for he guessed how she would take this bereavement. The death of his father had aged him, sobered him, set him looking back and thinking of the death of his great-grandfather, Henry II, who would be judged one of England’s most worthy kings and he thought of how he had died, deserted by his sons, sadly aware of it, and hated by his wife – in fact a lonely old man, friendless, and with few to wait at his bedside and offer him comfort. Yet he was a king who had done much for England. And that other Henry, Edward’s beloved father, who had brought the crown into danger and indeed had come near to losing it through men such as Simon de Montfort, had died mourned and regretted to such an extent that his children and his wife would be prostrate with grief and would keep his memory green for ever. Ironic, thought Edward, and wondered what his own fate would be. But it was not a matter of choice. Why should not a man be a good king and a good father? He knew that his Eleanor would stand beside him; she would not attempt to rule him as his mother had ruled his father. He loved his mother dearly but that did not mean to say that he did not realise her faults. Now that he was King he would have to curb her extravagance. He was not going to run into trouble with the barons as his father had done.
    In a sudden rush of affection he took his wife’s hand and pressed it as they stood there on the boat deck watching the white cliffs come closer.
    From the moment of his father’s death he had become the King, but he had not after all hastened home. He had better work to do on the Continent. This was not a time to indulge his grief but to consolidate his position. He visited the all-important Pope to ensure good relations with Rome; then he and Eleanor stayed awhile with her family in Castile, and then they came to Paris where he was entertained by the French King, Philip III, and Philip’s mother who was Edward’s Aunt Marguerite; he had even met the Count of Flanders at Montreuil and settled a dispute which had stopped the export of English wool to Flanders.
    He had made good use of his time and behaved, he believed, in a kingly manner by setting matters of state before his inclinations.
    Now the Queen had turned to him and she said, ‘Soon we must embark.’
    ‘It is a new life beginning for us,’ he replied. ‘When we step onto English soil again it will be as King and Queen.’
    ‘I wonder if the children will be there. Oh, Edward, our own babies and we may not recognise them.’
    There were tears in her eyes and he knew that she was thinking of Baby Joanna. He said gently, ‘You must not fret. It is not for long. She will come back to us.’
    ‘I should never have begged you to allow it,’ she said.
    ‘Think of your mother’s delight.’
    ‘I try to. Oh I must not be selfish. I have my two darlings waiting for me. It should have been three.’
    ‘You must not brood on that. Children die. But they can be replaced. We’ll have more. I promise you a round dozen.’
    ‘I pray to God that it may be so. But I cannot forget