The Strangled Queen

George R.R. Martin

The Characters in this Book

THE KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE:

LOUIS X, called The Hutin, son of Philip IV, the Fair, great-grandson of Saint Louis, aged 25.

HIS BROTHERS:

MONSEIGNEUR PHILIPPE, Count of Poitiers, a peer of France, aged 21.

MONSEIGNEUR CHARLES, Count of La Marche, aged 20.

HIS UNCLES:

MONSEIGNEUR CHARLES, Count of Valois, titular Emperor of Constantinople, Count of Romagna, peer of France, aged 44.

MONSEIGNEUR LOUIS, Count of Evreux, aged about 41.

HIS WIFE:

MARGUERITE, daughter of the Duke of Burgundy, granddaughter of Saint Louis, aged 21.

HIS DAUGHTER:

JEANNE OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE, aged 3.

HIS SISTER-IN-LAW:

BLANCHE, wife of Charles of La Marche, daughter of the Count Palatine of Burgundy and of Mahaut, Countess of Artois, aged about 19.

THE ARTOIS BRANCH DESCENDED FROM A BROTHER OF SAINT LOUIS:

ROBERT III OF ARTOIS, Lord of Conches, Count of Beaumont-le-Roger, aged 27.

THE BRANCH OF ANJOU-SICILY DESCENDED FROM ANOTHER BROTHER OF SAINT LOUIS:

MARIE OF HUNGARY, Queen of Naples, widow of Charles II of Naples, mother of the Kings Robert of Naples and Charles of Hungary, aged about 70.

CLÉMENCE OF HUNGARY, her granddaughter, daughter of Charles Martel and sister of Charobert, King of Hungary, aged 22.

THE BROTHERS MARIGNY:

ENGUERRAND, Coadjutor of King Philip the Fair and Rector-General of the kingdom, aged 49.

JEAN, Archbishop of Sens and Paris, aged about 35.

THE LOMBARDS:

SPINELLO TOLOMEI, a Siennese banker living in Paris, Captain-General of the Lombard Companies, aged about 60.

GUCCIO BAGLIONI, his nephew, aged 18.

SIGNOR BOCCACCIO, traveller for the Bardi Company.

THE CRESSAY FAMILY:

DAME ELIABEL, widow of the Squire of Cressay, aged about 40.

PIERRE and JEAN, her sons, aged about 20 and 22.

MARIE, her daughter, aged 16.

AND THESE:

EUDELINE, LOUIS X’s mistress, aged about 32.

HUGUES DE BOUVILLE, First Chamberlain to King Philip the Fair.

ALAIN DE PAREILLES, Captain-General of the Archers.

JACQUES DUÈZE, Bishop of Porto, Cardinal of the Curia, aged 70.

ROBERT BERSUMÉE, Captain of Château-Gaillard, aged 35.

ROBERTO ODERISI, a Neapolitan painter, pupil of Giotto.

All the above are historical names, as are those of the barons, justiciars, chamberlains, members of the Council, chancellors, the Abbot of Saint-Denis and the great officers of the Crown; all these people really existed. The only imaginary names are those of a few extras, of whom no trace can be found, such as Robert of Artois’s servant and the Provost of Montfort-I’Amaury.

Family Tree

Prologue

ON the 29th November 1314, two hours after vespers, twenty-four couriers, all dressed in black and wearing the emblems of France, passed out of the gate of the Château of Fontainebleu at full gallop and disappeared into the forest. The roads were covered with snow; the sky was more sombre than the earth; darkness had fallen, or rather it had remained constant since the evening before.

The twenty-four couriers would have no rest before morning, and would gallop onwards all next day, all the following days, some towards Flanders, some towards Angoumois and Guyenne, some towards Dole in the Comté, some towards Rennes and Nantes, some towards Toulouse, some towards Lyons, Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles, awakening bailiffs, provosts and seneschals, to announce in town and village throughout the kingdom that King Philip IV, called the Fair, was dead.

All along the roads the knell tolled out in dark steeples, a wave of sonorous, sinister sound spreading ever further till it reached all the frontiers of the kingdom.

After twenty-nine years of stern rule, the Iron King was dead of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of forty-six. It had occurred during an eclipse of the sun, which had spread a deep shadow over the land of France.

Thus, for the third time, the curse laid eight months earlier by the Grand Master of the Templars from the middle of a flaming pyre was fulfilled.

King Philip, stern, haughty, intelligent and secretive, had reigned with such competence and so dominated his period that, upon this evening, it seemed that the heart of the kingdom had ceased to beat.

But nations never die of the death of a man, however great he may have been; their birth and their death derive from other causes.

The name of Philip the Fair would glow down the centuries only by the flicker of the faggots he had lighted beneath his enemies and the glitter of the gold he had seized. It would quickly be forgotten that he had curbed the powerful, maintained peace in so far as it was possible, reformed the law, constructed fortresses that the land might be cultivated in their shelter, united provinces, convoked assemblies of the middle class so that it might speak its mind, and watched unremittingly over the independence of France.