[MR] Queen Eleanor seeks aid for King Richard

[Karen Setze]

Fellow Atlantians:

You have heard much from me, Lady Yseulte Trevelyn, of the wicked arrest and imprisonment of King Richard of England. For those who may have wondered about the lack of action from the His Holiness, know that you are not alone. Allow me to share with you the letter that Queen Eleanor, the king's mother, sent to the pope.

To her revered father and lord, Celestine, by the grace of God the highest pontiff, Eleanor, by wrath of God Queen of England, duchess of Normandy and countess of Anjou, to show himself a father to her, a suffering mother.

I had determined to be silent, lest I be accused of insolence and presumption if the overflowing of my heart and the violence of my grief evoked some less cautious word against the prince of priests. Grief is not very different from illness; in the impetus of its fire it does not recognize lords, it does not fear colleagues, it does not respect or spare anyone, not even itself. Let no one be surprised, then, if the power of grief makes my words harsh, for I lament a public loss while the private grief is inconsolably rooted in the depths of my spirit.

I beg that the clamor of the afflicted enter your ears; for our calamities are multiplied beyond number. You cannot pretend not to know of the crime and infamy, when you are vicar of the crucified, the successor of Peter, the priest of Christ, the anointed of the Lord, the God even of Pharaoh. From your face, father, let judgment come forth, let your eyes see equity; on your decision and the mercy of your see hang the vows of the people and unless your hand seizes judgment early, the whole tragedy of this evil will redound on you, since you are the father of orphans and judge of widows, the consoler of the grieving and sorrowing, the city of refuge for all. In such a mass of misery, the only and common solace is awaited from the authority of your power.

Our king is confined and on all sides anguish oppresses him. You see the state, indeed the fall of the kingdom, the malice of time, the cruelty of the tyrant who incessantly forges arms of iniquity from the furnace of avarice against the king whom, on his holy pilgrimage, under the protection of the God of heaven and the care of the Roman church, he captured and restrained by imprisoning chains and whom he is killing by prison and fear. For this tyrant scorns God and his terrible justice, broods over loot, and there is no one who can wrest the king from his hand. 

They now trust in his power and glory in the multitude of his riches, the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is ruin and whose glory is their confusion. It saddens the church publicly and excites the murmurs of the people not a little at the expense of their opinion of you that, in the face of such crime, of such tears, of the supplication of so many provinces, you have not sent one messenger to those princes. Often for insignificant causes your cardinals have been dispatched in legations with great power even to barbarous regions; yet in such an arduous, lamentable, common cause, you have not yet sent one subdeacon or acolyte. Profit makes legates today, not respect for Christ, not the honor of the church, nor the peace of kingdoms or salvation of the people. What profit or outcome could be more glorious to you than to exalt, in this liberation of the king, the peak of the highest pontificate, the priesthood of Aaron and Phineas? Certainly you
 would not have greatly humbled the dignity of the holy see if you had descended personally into Germany to free such a prince: one who had been received so courteously in prosperity should not be deserted so slothfully in adversity.

If that crafty old serpent, that tortuous snake, impedes the freeing of that king with deceptive machinations, we trust in the Lord that he will at the proper time look on the face of his anointed and give full power to his king. Our expectation grows stronger in certain hope and firm faith; let there be incessant prayers from the church to God for him.

Daily, do I send my pleas to heaven for aid. And should, heaven forfend, my son still be a prisoner when I begin my pilgrimage to Nottingham Castle in October to review the forces gathered there by Baroness Martelle von Charlottenburg of Bright Hills, I will stop at all chapels I pass to raise my prayers for his return.

It is good for the king to stand ready to salute the Lord with silence for, if he is now purged in the furnace of tribulation by God, who disposes adversity and prosperity with very salutary moderation, his vexation will cross over into glory and for his present double confusion and shame he will possess doubly in his land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and the Lord will be his assurance. Surely as there are now public sighs and general tears for him, so at the proper time what is desired by the people with common wishes will come to pass with rejoicing of the whole earth. Lord, in your power the King will rejoice and the Roman church, which now is so culpably slow in his liberation, will blush not without tears, that it did not recognize and help such a son in such anguish.

By my hand in London, on the feast of St. Monica, who was also a widow and afflicted by sorrows for her son.