A story about the tragic medieval princess, Joan of England.
The worst plague to ever devastate the world is unknown in England. As millions of people die, Princess Joan travels to mainland Europe and facing what poor and royal alike must face -- th...
Princess Isabella had been by her father's side when he died. She had been summoned from her home in France that spring when the King's health started to fail. She knew she had been lucky to be Edward's favourite child, escaping the great pestilence because she had had warning of it and had isolated herself in a country estate until the major wave of it passed. She had been lucky to stay in England until it was her choice to leave.
She suspected Edward's final words were apologising to Joan. Even though he rarely mentioned her since her death, Isabella knew his heartbreak was something he had never resolved. If they had been commoner sisters, perhaps they could have grown up together and raised their children together and been lifelong friends. There was no one Isabella had been closer to to her whole life, and she lost her best friend 30 years earlier with parting words sharp as barbs.
Isabella was betrothed at aged 19, but when it was time to board the ship to go to her future husband, she panicked and refused to be sent off like Joan had been. Edward had forgiven Isabella's capricious decision to cancel her impending marriage, and so Isabella waited until she was 33 years old to pick a husband. She had fallen in love with the French nobleman Enguerrand VII de Coucy and gathered the courage to leave England by that time. Her father gave her a massive annual payment, and the couple received new lands. Isabella continued to live as lavishly as the King's favourite child. No princess had ever gotten everything they had ever wanted the way she had. She had had two beautiful daughters and vast estates in her new country. Her life was as blessed as it could have been, and sometimes she wondered if her good luck was at the expense of Joan's bad luck.
She also wondered if Joan's death was an act of mercy, as it was quick, and she died pure of heart. Isabella knew Joan was in heaven, which was more certain than she could say for some of her family. What they didn't know then was that her betrothed prince would go onto abandon one wife, had another poisoned, and publicly flaunted his mistress among many barbaric deeds to his family and subjects, to be known forever as Peter the Cruel. Maybe the angels wanted to spare her the fate as the wife of a monster.
Seeing her father die tore deep into Isabella's heart. No parent had bestowed so many gifts on their child, perhaps out of guilt for his other losses. She was his only daughter out of five born to outlive him. Without King Edward, she had no protection and no annual salary. Without him, her future was less secured.
When Lord de Coucy heard of King Edward's passing, he renounced his English titles immediately. "The King is now a spoiled, spiteful child," he said. "Better to give up the lands now than have Richard take them."
Isabella knew this to be true, but she wasn't worried about her nephew ruling at that point. She didn't expect to be welcomed by the new King's mother, her own cousin Joanna of Kent. Though friends in their youth, Joanna was pressured to marry Prince Edward only nine months after her husband Thomas died. King Edward ordered the marriage for his son's sake, and the Pope blessed the consanguineous union. Joanna acquiesced but became sullen and bitter and lashed out to all her Plantagenet relatives from the marriage onward. The Dowager Princess would be no friend to Isabella under the new reign.
Isabella told her husband to return to France, but she had business to finish in England. She planned Edward's elaborate funeral and more importantly, her father's tomb memorial. It was the lasting reminder of his time on Earth, and the place where he could be prayed for and visited for all future generations.
Isabella designed it as a monument to him and all his children. Perhaps in some way, it would help his soul rest with the children he had lost. Edward and Philippa were buried together in Edward the Confessor's chapel.
Below them, Isabella commissioned thirteen weepers of their children. Of them, nine had passed before the King. Isabella's closest living sibling, Prince John, was eight years old when Joan left England. It was only she who could describe what Joan looked like, but it had been thirty years. Even her memories had faded. No paintings or drawings had been made of her during her life.
But she did her best. The bronze weeper at the bottom of Edward's tomb displayed a young girl wearing a reticulated headdress, cote-hardie and long sleeves and the coat of arms depicting Castile & Leon above France and England.
The weepers were meant to mourn the King and Queen in the afterlife, but they had mourned so many of their children in life. Perhaps the weeper would serve as a permanent memory of the princess who died before her life really began due to a fate she couldn't have predicted. Even years after her death, her face would be the face of an innocence lost.
Isabella lit a candle for her dead family. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.
She hoped Princess Joan was at peace.
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Fin!
I had a lot of fun reading on this topic and writing it, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. Special thanks to GambinoMG for the votes/comments along the way and thank you to everyone who read through this! I appreciate it. I might do another historical novel. Stay tuned!
