[MR] latest news of Troyes

[Karen Setze]

Dear Friends,
 
I have most heartwarming news, for King Henry V of England’s journey to Troyes 
this week seems likely to include a royal betrothal, to seal what may actually 
be a love match!
 
I just received a letter from one of my cousins, an Englishwoman who was widowed 
young, and has spent many years as lady in waiting and head of the nursery for 
the six children of Mary de Bohun, wife of Henry of Bolingbroke, who later 
became Henry IV.  She tells me that she is not surprised that their young king 
may be choosing to marry for love, for his parents’ marriage was also rather 
romantic!
 
Mary and her elder sister Eleanor were the daughters and joint-heiresses of 
their father, Humphrey de Bohun, the 7th Earl of Hereford, and his wife, Eleanor 
FitzAlan, daughter of the 10th Earl of Arudel.  Eleanor married Thomas of 
Woodstock, the first Duke of Gloucester, the youngest child of King Edward III, 
a greedy man. In order to have the entire inheritance for his wife, the duke 
pressured the child Mary to enter a convent.
 
The duke’s elder brother, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and his son, Henry 
of Bolingbroke, rescued Mary from the convent. When she was 12, she married 
Henry, and unwilling to follow her father-in-law’s advice that they wait to 
consummate the marriage, within a year she gave birth to a son, died soon 
afterward. At 16, she gave birth to the current King of England.
 
Mary produced three more sons, and two daughters, dying soon afterwards, long 
before her husband came to the throne. My cousin became as a mother to the 
current king, since he was but seven, poor little man, when his lady mother 
died. Over the years, he has confided many of his tender feelings and plans to 
my cousin.
 
My cousin says the young king is very tall – three inches over 6 feet! – slim, 
with dark hair cropped in a ring above the ears, and clean-shaven. He has a 
ruddy complexion, a large and pointed nose, and eyes that can flash from the 
softness of a dove’s to the brilliance of a lion’s. And unlike her country’s 
former rulers, Henry considers English his first language, and uses it for his 
correspondence.
 
Henry, king of England, and Princess Catherine of France were introduced at a 
peace conference two years ago, by her mother Queen Isabel, in hopes that her 
daughter’s charms would persuade the king to lower the amount of dowery he 
required with her hand. Though the king was heard to say she was “surpassingly 
fair,” to her mother’s dismay, he was not willing to reduce his demands. 

 
It may be that the king knew the princess was smitten with him. Her sister, wife 
of Duke Philip of Burgundy, has told me that ever since meeting King Henry, 
Princess Catherine has passionately longed to be espoused to him. But I am happy 
to report that the attraction is not all on one side. 

 
After they had several meetings, the Queen sent her daughter into hiding, and 
she did not appear at the next session of the conference. King Henry was not 
pleased, and he told Duke Philip:
 
“Fair cousin, we wish you to know that we will have the daughter of your king, 
or we will drive him and you out of his kingdom!”
 
Last year, after Henry had retaken Rouen and marched to the gates of Paris and 
he was asked to name his terms for peace, he said:
 
“We have been deceived and baffled so many times that we will treat with no one 
but the Princess Catherine herself, whose innocency, we are sure, would not try 
to deceive us.”
 
Queen Isabel soon sent the Bishop of Arras to deliver the invitation that were 
King Henry  to come to Troyes, where she holds court under the protection of the 
Duke Philip, the marriage would be agreed upon. So now it is not just a treaty 
of peace, but a marriage of state we are soon to celebrate. Happy Catherine! 
Happy Henry!
 
 Though we at Baroness Martelle’s manor outside Troyes are not likely to 
participate directly in the doings of the court, the general jubilation will 
likely add to the enjoyment of the tournament and feast she has called to 
celebrate the harvest, particularly of her vineyards! I do hope, dear friends, 
that many of you will join us on Saturday, the 30th day of October, in 
mask-making, in a tournament of silly weapons, in song and poetry, dance and 
feasting.
 
By my hand on this, the feast of the apostles Simon and Jude,
 
Lady Yseulte Trevelyn