~𝕭𝖊𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖞𝖆𝖑 𝖎𝖘 𝖔𝖓𝖑𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖇𝖊𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌~
Born the youngest daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, Constance of Bourbon grows up amidst comfort and splendour on her powerful family's estates in France. A shy child, she prefers her...
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~King in All but Name~
Four years later, September 1488, Westminster Palace....
"Ned's shining bright today." Beth said as she laced her mistress's soft woollen kirtle. Constance smiled, gazing out of the window she stood before - the same one she always stood before in the morning as she was dressed, searching for her husband's sun in the sky.
He indeed was shining bright. It promised to be a warm day - not that she'd be able to enjoy it, she had the council to attend and rule and that chamber was about as sunny as a Scottish cave! The day ahead was by no means void of troubles but it was good to have her Ned warming it.
"Yes he is." She said "Our boy must be leading a successful hunt!" Only Edward certainly wasn't a boy at eighteen and hadn't been for quite some time and his siblings, well, they were flocking from the nest of childhood quicker than she could count. It made her heart sing to know they could fly without danger.
Under her regency she'd seen peace restored across all of England, from north to south, east to west. To secure the Scottish border they'd been negotiating for the past year for Scotland's king to wed sixteen year old Isabella who'd grown into a beautiful and learned young woman - if a little too serious at times.
She often preferred to keep her own company but the solitude Constance initially disapproved of had borne fruit in seeing Isabella publish a book of music the year before. She was the first woman in England to do such a thing and her love of the arts would certainly recommend her to her intended husband who loved them the same.
Yes, Isabella would make a fine Scottish queen but her marriage was many moons away while little Aliénor, now thirteen, had already descended down the aisle two years prior.
Her marriage to young King Charles of France was possibly the greatest pageant Constance had ever seen with almost the entirety of the English court crossing the channel to witness and celebrate the nuptials. Three whole weeks of feasting and dancing consumed Amboise Castle where much wine was drunk and much sleep evaded in favour of midnight card games or watching the rising sun.
Upon the conclusion of the festivities and now bearing the title Queen of France, Aliénor returned to England with her kin and court. It was decided she wouldn't reside with her husband until she was fourteen and so held her own little court at Eltham palace where she was waited upon by French attendants and taught the customs of her future homeland.
When in the great hall she sat beneath a great canopy bearing the arms of France, on a throne that had the legs sawn down so her little, silk-slippered feet could touch the ground! She liked her husband (who was five years her senior) she'd told her mother when she visited, he was kind.
