Gautier, Count of Antwerp—Jamy Lamiens

The relationship between Gautier, Count of Antwerp, and Jamy Lamiens turns on a reversal of status: the count returns from exile as a poor stranger and serves in the household of the man who has married his daughter. Jamy does not know the horse-tender is his father-in-law, yet treats him with enough compassion to bring him under his roof. When the count finally reveals himself, the recognition exposes both the intimacy that had survived disguise and the class prejudice that had briefly wounded him.

Family Connection and the Count’s Return

After eighteen years away from Paris, the count had endured a life of hardship and become so changed in appearance that his former identity was difficult to recognize. He learned that Perrot had risen to become a marshal and a great lord, and that Violante, whom he had left in the care of an English marshal’s wife, had married her son, Jamy Lamiens. Finding his children alive and prosperous made his past adversity seem small by comparison. His reunion with them, however, began not with a formal announcement but with a cautious return to London to discover what had become of Violante.

Jamy encountered the count while he was begging near the household. Seeing an old and poor man, Jamy ordered a servant to bring him in and give him food for God’s sake. The count came to the house as a dependent stranger, not as a father seeking recognition. Jamy’s generosity therefore preceded any knowledge of kinship: he acted hospitably without knowing that the man he admitted was the father of his wife.

A Stranger in the Household

The count’s first welcome came through Jamy’s children. They gathered around the old man as he ate, caressed him, and resisted their governor’s efforts to lead them away. The count recognized his grandchildren and fondled them, while they clung to him as though they sensed their kinship. Violante came out and scolded them, not recognizing her father because age and privation had transformed him. Jamy, hearing what had happened, was displeased, yet his affection for the children led him to tell the household that the old man should be received into his service if he wished to stay.

The count offered to tend horses, the work with which he was familiar. Jamy assigned him a horse, and the count cared for it while also amusing the children. This arrangement placed the father-in-law below the son-in-law in the household’s visible order: Jamy was the master who gave him work, while the count accepted service in his own daughter’s home. The contrast is sharpened by Jamy’s father, who held Violante in contempt and disparaged her supposed origins when the children preferred the old man’s company. The count heard the insult but endured it without revealing who he was. Jamy, by contrast, had admitted him and put him to work, although he did not yet understand the significance of his kindness.

Shared Service and Recognition

When war resumed between France and Germany, the English king sent troops under Perrot and Jamy. The count went with them disguised as a horseboy. Unrecognized in the army, he nevertheless contributed through both counsel and action, doing more than the duties expected of his position. The three men thus served in the same campaign while the count remained hidden in plain sight: Jamy and Perrot saw him as a useful attendant, not as their kinsman.

The change came when the Queen of France, gravely ill, confessed that the count had been wrongfully exiled through her. Before her death, she urged that he or his children be restored to their estate. The king accepted her confession as proof of the count’s innocence and ordered a search, promising a substantial reward for news of the count or either child. Hearing the proclamation and trusting that it was genuine, the count went to Jamy and asked him to accompany him to Perrot. He then disclosed the family connection and proposed that Jamy receive the reward by identifying Perrot as the count’s son and Violante’s brother, while presenting himself as the father they had been seeking.

Perrot recognized the count and fell at his feet in tears. Jamy first heard the revelation, then saw Perrot’s recognition, and was overcome with wonder and joy. He also felt deep shame for the injurious words he had sometimes used toward the count while he believed him to be merely a hostler. Jamy fell at his father-in-law’s feet and asked forgiveness. The count raised him and graciously granted it, converting the relationship from an unknowing act of household charity into an acknowledged bond of kinship and reconciliation.

Kinship, Honor, and the Reward

After the three men had shared their adventures, Perrot and Jamy wanted to reclothe the count. He refused. Instead, he insisted that Jamy present him to the king in his existing condition and horseboy’s dress, after first securing the promised reward. Jamy accordingly appeared before the king with the count and Perrot, offering to produce the count and his children in return for the proclaimed payment. The count’s refusal to change clothes preserved the visible evidence of what he had endured and made his son-in-law’s role in the restoration part of the public reckoning.

The count’s proposal also tied kinship to material redress. Jamy had married Violante without receiving a dowry, and the count intended that the royal reward should compensate him as her husband. His plan made Jamy not merely the man who had unknowingly sheltered him, but an active participant in restoring the family and securing his wife’s place within it. Their reconciliation therefore joins private forgiveness to public restoration: Jamy’s earlier welcome is answered by the count’s pardon, while the count’s return gives his son-in-law an opportunity to receive honor and reward through the family bond.