The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham by Tony Riches

say Humphrey never seemed to treat Jacqueline the same after he was told the sad news. It was a boy, his son and heir who could have even one day been King of England. He once confided to me that his son would have been christened Humphrey, the name handed down through four generations from his mother’s Norman de Bohun family.
    The tragedy meant I had my lover back. I had missed being the centre of his world, missed his loving embrace. We returned to taking risks, back to our secret double lives. The duke needed time to grieve but he wanted me to help him through it. The countess wasn’t well enough to ride, but I went with him to exercise the horses and we would gallop recklessly through the woods to leave our escort far behind, just as I had done with Jacqueline in the London parks.
    This time it was different though, as the duke started talking about how we could one day be married. Physicians had told him the countess might not be able to have more children, but he had proved he was capable of fathering them. He began talking of how their marriage may not be legal and how easily Jacqueline would find a new husband in France. I listened, not daring to hope, but knowing my future happiness depended on his wishful thinking.

    The duke was a good friend of the powerful Abbot of St Albans, John of Wheathampstead, as they had studied together at Balliol College in Oxford and St Albans was one of Humphrey’s favourite places. On that frosty Christmas Eve I travelled with Humphrey and Jacqueline and our growing retinue in grand procession to the priory of St Albans. The prior made us welcome and formally acknowledged the countess as Humphrey’s true and legitimate wife. I watched as the prior blessed their union and admitted the countess into the fraternity of the abbey, confirming her official acceptance by the church.
    We stayed on at St Albans for the twelve days of Christmas, but it was not the peaceful celebration we would have wished. Our household had now grown to over three hundred servants and soldiers, many of them Dutch and Flemish mercenaries who had seen an opportunity and travelled across the English Channel to serve their rich new count. The duke was also building his personal guard of soldiers into a small private army, recruiting good loyal Englishmen who had fought with him on his campaigns in France.
    The Christmas festivities were hardly underway when a servant rushed in to tell the Duke that the men of our household had become drunk and rowdy, the English fighting with the Dutch over an argument. Humphrey immediately sent some men of his personal guard to sort it out. They returned some time later, having thrown the ringleaders in irons. They also had more serious news. Others had apparently been caught red-handed, blatantly poaching deer and rabbits in the abbey woods, an offence punishable by death.
    I had never seen Humphrey so angry. He said he had to make an example and ordered one of the men put into the stocks. I watched with Jacqueline from a high window overlooking the courtyard as he proceeded to hit the defenceless man over the head and ordered that his dog, a fine hunting greyhound, should be hung as a punishment. It was a side of him I had never witnessed before. He was normally so charming it was easy to forget the sights he must have seen as a soldier fighting in France. I know the countess was shocked at his brutality, although she knew better than to intervene. It was hardly the happy and peaceful Christmas we had expected.

    Another surprising side of the duke was his sudden determination to take control of his new territories abroad. His friends warned him to take care and his enemies watched with interest to see what he would do. John, Duke of Bedford, wanted to settle the dispute between the Dukes of Brabant and his brother Humphrey, with himself and the Duke of Burgundy as arbitrators. John had already given French territories to the Duke of Burgundy and Humphrey hesitated to put his