Bury St Edmunds, England
April 1152
The Black Monks of St Edmund’s Abbey had gathered for their daily chapter meeting. They opened with a prayer to the Blessed St Edmund, whose holy shrine attracted such large and profitable crowds of pilgrims to their monastery. After reading aloud a chapter of their Benedictine Rule, they moved on to more secular concerns: a discussion of finances, the need to find a new tenant for one of the abbey’s manors, the allocation of weekly duties among the monks. When Abbot Ording stepped up to the lectern, his audience expected to hear the familiar words “Let us now speak of matters of discipline,” freeing the brothers to come forward and accuse themselves-or one another-of mistakes, misdeeds, and occasional sins. Instead, Abbot Ording said somberly, “I have news to impart. The king and his son, the Count of Boulogne, will be arriving on the morrow, and they will, of course, expect us to offer them the hospitality of our abbey.”
A royal visit was never an unmixed blessing, for the cost of entertaining a king’s entourage could strip an abbey’s larders bare, especially if the king chose to linger in their midst. But the dismay that greeted Abbot Ording’s announcement went well beyond economic anxieties. The sad fact was that in this, the seventeenth year of Stephen’s reign, the English king found himself at war with his own Church.
This latest clash had been the most serious one yet. Stephen had become convinced that the only way to safeguard the throne for his son was to have Eustace crowned in his own lifetime, in accordance with Continental custom. But the Archbishop of Canterbury refused to cooperate and Stephen had at last lost all patience. Early in the year, he’d summoned a Church Council to London and demanded that they agree to anoint Eustace then and there. The archbishop had again balked, but this time his refusal rocked Stephen’s throne to its very foundations, for he claimed to be acting under direct orders from the Pope, who would not recognize Eustace’s right to an ill-gotten crown, one obtained by perjury.
Never before had the papacy spoken out so boldly against Stephen’s kingship. So great was Stephen’s outrage that he’d taken a very imprudent action, ordering the clerics arrested until Archbishop Theobald agreed to perform the ceremony. But in the confusion, the archbishop managed to slip away and once again fled England, seeking refuge in Flanders. Stephen soon came to his senses, released the clerics, and permitted the archbishop to return. But the rift had not been mended, and as long as Stephen remained at loggerheads with his chief primate, he would find no warm welcome in the abbeys and priories of his realm.
The monks of Bury St Edmunds did their best, though, to put their grievances aside for the length of the king’s stay. The guest hall was made immaculate, Abbot Ording turned over his own quarters for Stephen’s comfort, and the abbey cook served up a dinner that would have done any king proud: baked lamprey eels, stewed mutton, stuffed capon, custard, applesauce, a spiced chicken broth, and hot bread. The abbot was grateful that the fare was so appetizing, for he took his obligations as a host seriously. He could only hope that the pleasures of the meal would compensate for the stilted and desultory nature of the dinner conversation.
So much was not suitable table talk. Above all, no mention could be made of the nineteen-year-old youth who not only held Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, but who now had the blessings of the Pope as he cast his eyes toward England.
Abbot Ording sighed, for so many names would sink like stones in the conversational waters. The Earl of Chester, who’d dared to defy the Crown and gotten away with it…so far. Hugh Bigod, who was the reason why Stephen had gone north in a show of force, hoping-not very realistically, in the abbot’s opinion-to intimidate Bigod into obedience. Robert Beaumont, who was ostensibly loyal but rarely at Stephen’s court. Rainald Fitz Roy, who was rumored to be in Normandy at the behest of his fellow barons, urging his nephew to invade England as soon as possible. Roger Fitz Miles, who’d recently duped Stephen into believing he was contemplating a switch in loyalties, when in reality, he’d merely been trying to lure Stephen away from his siege of Wallingford Castle.
No, the list of safe topics was a short one, indeed. Political talk led invariably to Henry Fitz Empress, and discussion of Church matters would only remind them all of Stephen’s feud with the archbishop. Abbot Ording sighed again, not yet desperate enough to comment upon the mercurial spring weather, and then brightened. “Is the Bishop of Winchester still in Rome, my liege?” Although even that was a sensitive subject, for all knew Stephen’s brother had made the arduous journey to the papal court in a foredoomed attempt to regain some of his dwindling influence with the Vatican.
Stephen sopped up gravy with a bread finger, smiling at his uncomfortable host. “No, he has departed Rome. But I do not expect him to be back in England until the autumn, for he intends to return by way of Spain. He has always wanted to see the holy shrine at Santiago de Compostela.”
That drew a quick response from Stephen’s second son. “I’d rather see Paris myself, or mayhap Poitiers.”
The abbot had never met the young Earl of Surrey before. Will was, like all of Stephen’s children, quite good- looking, flaxen-haired and blue-eyed. He was also one of the wealthiest eighteen-year-olds in Christendom, for three years ago his father had secured for him a great child-heiress, Isabella de Warenne, who’d inherited the earldom of Surrey after her father died on crusade. He had a winning smile, the untested confidence of youth, and the brash cockiness so common to the sons of kings, laughing immoderately at all his own jokes and interrupting his elders much too freely for the abbot’s liking. But he still made a favorable impression, especially among those familiar with Eustace’s barbed defenses and sudden sarcasms.
“Poitiers?” Stephen was smiling quizzically at his son. He was, as the abbot and much of England well knew, the most indulgent of fathers, denying his children nothing. Not only had he bestowed the prestigious abbacy of Westminster upon his illegitimate and unqualified son Gervais-an appalling appointment in Abbot Ording’s judgment-but he’d even founded a Benedictine nunnery in Kent so that he could name his young daughter, Mary, as its prioress. It occurred to the abbot that his failings as a king had not served him well in fatherhood, either, for with his sons as with his barons, he could not bring himself to disappoint, to discipline, or to demand the respect due him. “Why Poitiers, lad?” he asked curiously, and Will grinned impishly.
“Because of the Lady Eleanor, of course! Poitiers will be attracting more pilgrims than any shrine in Christendom now that she is in the marriage market again.”
Stephen laughed, but Eustace did not. “If you’re looking for a whore,” he said impatiently, “you can find any number of sluts right here in Bury St Edmunds, Little Brother. There is no need to go all the way to Aquitaine for one.”
The silence that followed was stifling. Will flushed, but he was not as cocky as the abbot first thought, for although he glared at his elder brother, he held his tongue. The abbot was offended, as were most of those who’d overheard Eustace, for he’d just broken one of their society’s unwritten rules: Whatever men might say among themselves in private, a highborn lady’s honour was not besmirched in a public setting.
Stephen was no less dismayed than the monks. “Have you forgotten that we’re dining at God’s Table?” he asked testily. His first inclination was to insist that Eustace apologize to the abbot and his brethren, but his son was no errant schoolboy. At twenty-two, he was a man grown, a man who must accept responsibility for his own acts, his own words, no matter how ill-considered. Signaling for more wine, he regarded his eldest with baffled anger. Whatever had possessed Eustace to defame a woman who’d been his own brother-in-law’s queen? And within hearing of Bury St Edmunds’s abbot, of all men!
The abbot was watching Eustace, too, with more objective, and therefore more discerning, eyes than Stephen. He was not long in concluding that Eustace’s affront had been a deliberate provocation, well calculated to embarrass his father, the most chivalrous of men, before an audience of monks. But Eustace’s triumph did not seem to have given him much pleasure. His smile was at once defiant, brittle, and defensive, almost as if he’d been the one wronged, and somewhat to the abbot’s surprise, he found himself feeling a twinge of pity for them both. Fathers and sons. Always a Gordian knot, for certes, but how much more troubling when there was a crown caught up in its tangled coils.
No one seemed to know what to say. It was the abbey’s hospitaller who finally came to the rescue. “It is my duty and privilege, Your Grace, to meet all the needs of the guests staying within the walls of our abbey. May I ask how long you plan to remain with us?”
With an effort, Stephen forced his eyes away from his son. “We’ll be staying just one night, departing on the morrow.” Adding politely, “As much as we would enjoy your hospitality, my queen and the Lady Constance are awaiting us at Cantebrigge.”
The monks tried to conceal their relief that his visit would be so brief, with mixed success. But one of the other abbey guests, a prosperous wool merchant, was looking perplexed. After some hesitation, he said, “Begging
