The Battle of the Queens

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The long summer was over. From the turret window the Queen looked disconsolately beyond the moat to the forest where the bronzed leaves of the towering oaks and the copper of the beeches splashed their autumnal colours across the landscape. Mist hung over the marsh where the sedge grew thickly; listlessly she watched a pair of magpies, vivid black and white against the October sky.

And she thought of Angoulême where, looking back, the days had seemed always full of sunshine and the halls of her father’s castle inhabited by handsome troubadours whose delight it was to sing of the incomparable charm and beauty of the Lady Isabella. And understandably so, for there could not have been a woman at the courts of the Kings of England or France whose beauty could compare with hers. There are many handsome women but now and then there appears one who is possessed not only of obvious physical charms but some indefinable quality, which would seem to be indestructible. Helen of Troy was one, Isabella of Angoulême such another.

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