The Revolt of the Eaglets by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online Page B

counts and nobles together with men of the church to my banquet. They shall have gifts which will prove to them that I shall be a generous king. My father is the most parsimonious man alive. He hates giving anything away. He will never relinquish his hold on one castle while he lives. I will show my subjects here how different I shall be. I want to be as different from my father as I can possibly be. I regret that I share his name.’
    ‘Would you rather have been a William?’
    ‘That was my eldest brother. There are more Williams in England and Normandy than any other name, I’ll swear. They are all named after my great-great-grandfather, William the Conqueror. You are one of them, my friend.’
    ‘I’d say there are as many Henrys.’
    ‘Nay, William, I’d wager it. I have an idea. At my banquet I shall reparate all the Williams and they shall dine with me in one room. No one who is not a William shall sit down with me. Then you and I will count them and see how many Williams are there. I’ll wager there will be more than a hundred.’
    Henry was excited at the prospect and William joined in his enthusiasm, realising that in planning his Christmas celebrations Henry forgot his enmity towards his father.
    He was delighted to discover that there were one hundred and ten knights named William and many of other ranks.
    He was the only Henry among the Williams who crowded into his chamber. This was called the feast of the Williams.
    When his father heard what had happened, he was displeased by what seemed to him childish frivolity. He also heard rumours of his son’s growing dissatisfaction with his state and this was more disturbing than his irresponsibility.

    Young Henry left for England soon after Christmas. That banquet had been a great success. It was all very well for his friend William the Marshall to tell him to beware of flatterers. He was popular, good-looking, charming – all things that his father was not, and what William called flattery was in fact the truth.
    When he had been at Bures his mother’s uncle, Ralph de Faye, had come to see him bringing with him his friend, Hugh de St Maure, and they had said what accounts they would take back to his mother of his kingly ways.
    He had been enchanted by this kinsman and his friend. They had declared themselves quite shocked by the manner in which his father tried to treat him.
    ‘You might be a child of ten years old by the way the King behaves towards you,’ they said. ‘Why, you are in your seventeenth year. You are a man.’
    It was true; he was a man and treated like a boy!
    ‘You should make your dissatisfaction known,’ Ralph told him.
    He knew he should. But how? It was all very well to talk about defying his father when he was not there and quite a different matter when one was confronted by him. Young Henry remembered how the face could flush, the eyes seem to start out of their sockets and the terrible fury begin to rise. Any wise man kept away from that.
    Still, they were right. Something should be done, but it would have to be more subtle than confrontation with his father and a demand that he be given his rights.
    In the meantime he was going to England and that was where he liked best to be because in England he was a king; and when his father was absent he could delude himself into thinking that he ruled the land.
    He was not allowed to delude himself for long. He had not been at Westminster more than a month or so when his father arrived.
    Face to face with the older Henry the younger lost his courage. It had always been so. Much as he might rage against him to his friends, his father only had to appear and he was immediately subdued.
    ‘I hear,’ said the King, ‘that you passed a merry Christmas at Bures.’
    ‘I think my … our subjects were pleased by the display I gave.’
    The elder Henry nodded slowly.
    ‘You seem to have a fondness for my Norman subjects. That is well because we are leaving shortly for Normandy.’
    ‘We