Princess of the Black Death | ✔️

Chapter XLI

Autumn 1348, en route to London, England

John had returned alone to Bordeaux, leaving instructions in Loremo to bury Princess Joan in consecrated ground, but to mark her grave so that she could be reinterred on the King's request.

He told the horrible news to everyone still alive in the castle.

"Good have mercy on her, and on all of us," Andrew Ulford said solemnly.

Andrew had gathered some crew who could sail their ship, and the remaining survivors of Joan's retinue finally returned to England. The piles of riches that were temporarily to be stored until the journey commenced were haphazardly left behind in the castle unguarded. There weren't enough people left to load the cargo back onboard, and the survivors only wanted to return safely back home as quickly as possible.

The sailing back was solemn, with no more spoken than needed to be said. They did not know if the plague sailed with them or arrived at their destination before them. The world was dying around them, and the desperation to get home was overshadowed by the knowledge not even home was safe.

After they arrived back at Portsmouth, the retinue parted back to their responsibilities. John returned to his estates in Essex to inform his mother and brother what happened in Bordeaux. As the eldest son, he became the second Baron Bourchier. He cried not at all on his journey, held his mother as she broke down in his arms, and told no one of his brief marriage to the princess. That he kept buried deep within himself. He prayed for his father and his wife every night.

Andrew Ulford was tasked with a horrible job of delivering the news directly to the King and Queen. The wedding was not due to occur yet, and the retinue was not due back until closer to early winter. When Ulford called upon an audience after arriving early and without Robert Bourchier, immediately the King knew to expect terrible news.

"Speak your news and say it true," King Edward said.

Andrew bowed quickly. "Your majesty, a terrible fate befell us in France. A great pestilence is rampaging Europe. It has taken half of Bordeaux, most of our travelling party, and it took Baron Bourchier and then your daughter Princess Joan."

Everyone present gasped. Queen Philippa cried out. "It cannot be true!"

Edward touched his chest. "Oh, dear God. This is awful news! My beloved girl."

Andrew described the painful symptoms, the quick rate of decline, and the seemingly unstoppable spread. He had no explanation for how he and others survived whilst most did not. They knew not what the cause even was. Rumours had been spreading about a sickness, but nothing so deadly and so rapid had ever been seen before.

Edward thanked his lawyer for the news and excused him to return to his family. The King informed his Privy Council and demanded a plan of action be devised on how to protect the country when the pestilence inevitably arrived at the shores.

Privately, Edward cried in his bedchambers with his wife. His grief overwhelmed him, making him dizzy and his knees buckle. He braced a hand against the wall. He felt twice his age, like the years piled onto him in an instant.

"She was so young and so smart. I was impatient. I should have waited until she was at least 16. Then we would have known about this plague and kept her safe with us," Edward said.

Philippa had not seen her husband weep before. She held him close. He collapsed into her. "We couldn't have known. This was God's will. She is in her heavenly home now. We will see her again when it is our time."

After a day for the news to sink in, he wrote a letter to King Alfonso:

"We are sure that your Magnificence knows how, after much complicated negotiation about the intended marriage of the renowned Prince Pedro, your eldest son, and our most beloved daughter Joan, which was designed to nurture perpetual peace and create an indissoluble union between our Royal Houses, we sent our said daughter to Bordeaux, en route for your territories in Spain. But see, with what intense bitterness of heart we have to tell you this, destructive Death (who seizes young and old alike, sparing no one and reducing rich and poor to the same level) has lamentably snatched from both of us our dearest daughter, whom we loved best of all, as her virtues demanded.

No fellow human being could be surprised if we were inwardly desolated by the sting of this bitter grief, for we are humans too. But we, who have placed our trust in God and our Life between his hands, where he has held it closely through many great dangers, we give thanks to him that one of our own family, free of all stain, whom we have loved with our life, has been sent ahead to Heaven to reign among the choirs of virgins, where she can gladly intercede for our offences before God Himself."

Edward wished for continued peace between the kingdoms despite no formal marriage.

When Princess Isabella heard the news, she also cried and lit a candle for her sister, but to herself her thoughts were to be glad to be the one alive. The rest of court was half in mourning and half in fear of what was going to come for them.

Edward soon sent an expensive expedition for Joan's body to be returned to London, but it never came. Some sources said she was buried where she was to be married in Bayonne Cathedral. Other sources said she was buried in either Loremo or Bordeaux, and other accounts, to stop the plague's spread, that the mayor burned the Bordeaux sea port and the Plantagenet castle where Joan's remains were waiting to set sail. It was thus not clear where she was laid to rest, so she could not be recovered.

Despite his vast wealth and power, the King could never get his daughter home.