Queen By Right

by Anne Easter Smith

It was during that sitting of Parliament, when Richard’s popularity was at its height, that Sir William Oldhall was elected Speaker of the Commons. But the crowing had not lasted long. Somerset was soon at Henry’s right hand again, and Oldhall was accused of plotting to kill the king and was forced to seek sanctuary. Absurd, Cecily thought. Even more absurd were the honors heaped on Somerset despite his having managed to lose not only Normandy but Gascony as well by then. The only English stronghold left in France was Calais, and befuddled Henry had given his favorite the prized captaincy of that valuable staple town. What magic had the man woven around the king and queen? Cecily wondered. Had he been a younger man, Cecily might have believed the rumors that Somerset and Margaret were lovers, so many were the favors Henry lavished on the favorite.

  “I fear the king will make Somerset his heir presumptive, Cecily, and I cannot stand by and see it happen,” Cecily remembered Richard telling her. “He is still a bastard Beaufort and so excluded from the inheritance. If he were a better man, I might accept Henry’s choice. But as he is not, it would spell more disaster for England.”

  Cecily sighed. If only Henry and Margaret had produced a son sooner, the conflict over the heir presumptive would have been avoided.

  That was the year, too, when citizens had whispered of Henry’s uncharacteristic forcefulness against Jack Cade’s rebels of Kent and Sussex, Cecily recalled. “A harvest of heads,” she muttered, wincing at the memory of twenty-three gruesome heads atop the drawbridge tower of London Bridge that summer. What had come over Henry, Cecily had asked her brother at the time. Salisbury had shrugged and suggested that perhaps Richard had precipitated the reprisals. “I was present at the council meeting—as was your husband—when a report from the Commons told of a motion made by a member from Bristol to name York heir presumptive. I have never seen Henry white with anger before.” And she could imagine now, as her brother had described, that Richard went equally white—whether from fear or anger she knew not. But apparently he had knelt then and sworn his allegiance to the king with all sincerity.

  But had that incident sparked the fire that made Henry finally turn against Richard? Nay, it was probably what happened at Dartford.

  “Dartford.” Cecily groaned the word as though that village in Kent were the most desolate spot in all the world. “Disastrous Dartford.”

  She poured herself some ale, cursing when she spilled some on the tapestried cloth. So many memories, she thought, with so many threads and so many twists. Ah, the fickle wheel of fortune! How she wished Constance were with her now to read the charts for her. But she refused to add to her heartache by thinking of Constance.

  Instead she forced herself to think on happier times. She remembered Christmas at Ludlow that year. The night after celebrating Christ’s birth, she had drunk a little too heartily of her favorite hippocras. Richard had carried her up to their room, and that night she had conceived their twelfth child, named—finally—after his father. How she ached for her husband now. It was hard to believe she would never again feel his body next to hers, never feel his caresses, never hear him gasp with pleasure. Stop it, Cis, she reprimanded herself. This is not helping.

  The news of her conception was the only thing that made Richard smile that January of 1452, she thought grimly, as the road to Dartford had begun on Twelfth Night. Dear Piers was the clumsiest Lord of Misrule I have ever seen, Cecily reminded herself sadly, with his cavorting and hopeless juggling. But he did make us laugh, did he not, Richard?

  “Richard! Why are you not here with me and laughing?” she cried, yearning to hear that infectious neigh just one more time.

  It was during the festivities that the message from Sir William in sanctuary in London had arrived. “The king made a public statement of his displeasure toward your grace,” Oldhall had written to Richard. Sir William! She shook her head when she remembered him now, conjuring up his bewhiskered face and familiar gouty limp. He had stood by Richard no matter what the consequences. I warrant he would have rather died at Wakefield alongside Richard than of apoplexy at his town house a mere month before the battle. What a dear old friend he was to us, she mused.

  I suppose Richard had no alternative but to sign yet another declaration of allegiance to Henry, she admitted grudgingly, for surely he had more than once demonstrated his fealty. If only Henry had known how much Richard had wanted to avoid civil strife, she mused. But the king’s insecurity could not accommodate Richard’s growing pride of place, and Richard’s determination to follow his path would not allow him to watch while his perfectly valid claim to the throne was continually pushed aside. Ah, how stubborn men can be, Cecily sighed, and how foolish.

  She made herself think back again to that winter of ’Fifty-two. By now, she knew, Richard feared for his own safety and that is why he had decided to take action by writing to the king again to reiterate his other vows of loyalty. Granted, ’twas in a less conciliatory tone this time, she remembered, although he had prefaced the missive by swearing that all he had desired since returning from Ireland was to show his fealty to the crown and “to restore good government.” Aye, I am certain he used the phrase “good government” or was it “good governance.” No matter, Cecily ruefully admitted, for it was then Richard had made a mistake. He should not have written about his personal animosity for Somerset. He had dictated the words with such venom that Cecily had found herself looking at him with a mixture of admiration and fear. What was it he had said? “Somerset laboureth continually about the king’s highness for my undoing, and to corrupt my blood, and to disinherit me and my heirs, and such persons as be about me.” Aye, my love, those must have been the phrases that turned Henry away from you. Queen Margaret and her Somerset had succeeded, and battle lines between Lancaster and York had been finally drawn.

  Cecily swallowed the last of the ale and started to pace in front of the fire. You should have gone to court, my love, she railed at Richard. In truth, you should have told Henry to his face that you were no traitor. Surely he would have seen the truth in your eyes and the sincerity in your voice. Henry had not perceived them before so why this time, would have been your answer, I suppose.

  Instead you had remained quietly at Ludlow gathering your retinue. You had not dared approach the king in London without support, but you were equally determined not to appear warlike. That is why you went peacefully to your property at Dartford to set up camp and wait, and not threaten the capital, so you told me.

  She chewed aimlessly on a wheatcake and then threw the rest into the fire. You acted with honor, Cecily told an imaginary Richard. True, you did not obey Henry’s summons to attend him in Coventry but went to Kent instead with a goodly number at your back, but only because we looked to your safety. She remembered the prickle of fear that had run up her spine when the last of the company disappeared over Ludford Bridge. She knew Richard had reached the end of his tether, and that end led Richard to rebel. She knew now how foolhardy Richard’s march to Dartford had been and his attempt to have Somerset dismissed. She had to admit that Henry had acted swiftly and well for once. He had ordered London to bar Richard’s way into the city, and the city obeyed its king. “That was your last straw, was it not, my love,” Cecily asked aloud.

  Cecily well remembered what she was doing when the messenger had arrived at Ludlow after the confrontation with the king.

  She had spent most of the morning wrapped in her fur-lined mantle in the garderobe, enduring the ignominies of early pregnancy. Snappish, she had eventually emerged and spent a pleasant hour talking with Edward in the warmth of the small solar. When the sharp rapping had come on her door, Cecily was jolted from her book. Astonished, she saw it was John Blaybourne, a man she thought had probably been killed in France and whom she had not thought on since Rouen. She rose and gave him a warm smile of welcome as the big man went down on one knee to her. Even in his choice of a bearer of bad tidings Richard showed his love for me, she now thought wistfully. He knew I would trust John Blaybourne and that the fa
ithful archer would be gentle with his words.

  It was then that she noticed his sorry appearance. “I see from the mud on your clothes that you have come in haste, Master Blaybourne, and in the York livery, so your visit is official, I presume.” Icy fingers were beginning to encircle her delicate stomach, and she was afraid she would be sick again. “What is your news, sir?”

  It was then she had learned that Richard and his now-swollen company in Kent had hoped to garner even more support from those who had followed Cade two years before, but the head harvesting of the previous summer had cowed the Kentishmen, and when Henry had arrived with a far larger force only a day later, a standoff at Dartford had occurred.

  “My lord of York laid bare the treasons of my lord of Somerset in matters concerning France, demanding that Somerset be imprisoned and answer my lord of York’s accusations in a fair trial,” Blaybourne had told her, adding that Salisbury and Warwick had ferried messages back and forth between the two leaders. Henry had eventually agreed to arrest Somerset and set up a hearing on condition that Richard lay down his arms and send his men home.

  Blaybourne had deliberately paused then, hadn’t he, Cecily recalled, and he could not look her in the eye.

  “What then, Master Blaybourne?” She was very close to panic, standing over the still kneeling archer. Dear God, she remembered thinking, they have executed Richard! “Do not dissemble, sir. Is my lord safe? Tell me!” She had cried this out so loud that ten-year-old Edward had run across the solar to protect her.

  “Answer her grace at once, sirrah!” Ned had commanded in his boy’s soprano, and Cecily smiled now at the memory.

  “My lords of York and Devon were received in the king’s tent at Blackheath outside London,” the archer had continued in a rush. “And they knelt before our sovereign right humbly.” Blaybourne lowered his voice. “But they were deceived, my lady.”

  John Blaybourne told her that the king had broken his promise and that “my lord of Somerset, instead of being in custody, was standing next to the king. Upon seeing him, Duke Richard rose angrily and denounced the deception, whereupon he was seized, disarmed, and escorted into London by none other than Somerset himself.”

  The scene still sent shivers down her back when she thought of it. Cecily still puzzled over why Henry had not imprisoned her husband there and then, but the king had more humiliation planned for the rebellious duke of York. Richard was made to swear an oath of loyalty in front of a large crowd in St. Paul’s church and to publicly lay down his arms. Cecily remembered the order by heart: “The duke of York must never again attempt such a rebellion against the king, and he must always come, humble and obedient, whenever the king commands.”

  “Aye, like a puppet,” she cried to the empty room, wondering if it was then that her heart had begun to harden against the king.

  As she poured herself more ale, Cecily pondered why the king had allowed Richard to retire to Ludlow. Strange, she thought, when Henry had no compunction about punishing some of Richard’s supporters, whose heads were stuck on London Bridge or bodies hung from gibbets later that same summer. And even their friend the earl of Devon was placed under house arrest. Perhaps Henry had been so unsure of his power that he had not dared harm a royal duke. Cecily rose and went to the window, looking over the cold, gray ribbon of river that flowed beneath the castle walls.

  She sighed, recognizing that the whole sorry journey to Dartford had been a colossal blunder. If you had taken London then, my love, you might well be on the throne now, she told his ghost. Instead Richard had returned home, leaving Somerset in high favor at court again, believing himself invincible.

  Selfishly Cecily had been ecstatic when Richard returned to her. And thus, safe behind Ludlow’s high walls with him that October, she was brought to bed of her eighth son, and her grateful lord granted her wish to name the boy after him. How apt that had been, Cecily smiled now, thinking of her quiet, serious son—at nine, the image of his father—fast asleep with George in his chamber next to Meg’s. Delicate though he was in childhood, her little Dickon had hung on to life valiantly through fevers and colds and had gained Richard’s admiration for his determination to survive during the few years the boy was to know his father. Poor child, she thought, he will have to rely on Edward to teach him how to be a man now.

  As she contemplated the autumn and winter of Dickon’s first few months, Cecily remembered it included one of the few bouts of illness she had experienced since her accident in Rouen. It was during those months of severe pain that she learned Queen Margaret had finally conceived.

  Queen Margaret! What a thorn she has been in our sides since our return from Ireland. Cecily thought back to their first meeting on the riverboat to Rouen, when the beautiful young woman had confided in her, and on to their unexpected meeting that spring of ’Fifty-three at the shrine of Our Lady in Walsingham, when Margaret had treated her kindly and made Cecily a promise.

  Aye, but you did not keep your promise, did you, your grace, and despite all my best efforts to appeal to our former friendship, you could never look on Richard as anything but your enemy. Cecily gritted her teeth, barely hearing the everyday sounds from the Thames and the city floating up to her.

  PART FIVE

  Know well that no man merits having praise

  By virtue of the good in someone else;

  Nor does he merit blame for others’ sins.

  Honor to him to whom the honor’s due.

  ROMAN DE LA ROSE

  21

  England, Spring 1453

  The March wind roared like a lion outside the new glass windows of the Erber and the rain beat a tattoo upon them. Alice Neville had taken pity on her sister-in-law and invited the Yorks to lodge with her. Richard had been dispossessed of Baynard’s Castle, his new London residence, after the Dartford incident.

  “I had only stayed there once,” Cecily complained to Alice a day after she had arrived at the spacious Erber with her three youngest children. She looked around the familiar solar, remembering sitting on her father’s knee by the fire, and noted that little had changed other than the windows and a new baldachin over the bed that incorporated the Montagu green eagle displayed and the Neville saltire.

  Alice has aged, Cecily thought, lifting her eyes from her embroidery to look fondly at her sister-in-law. I wonder if I look as haggard. At forty-six, having borne ten children and become a grandmother, the countess of Salisbury no longer had the youthful energy Cecily had so loved in their younger days. Still, Alice had extended a warm and enthusiastic welcome to her husband’s family. Five-month-old Dickon had taken a liking to his aunt immediately and now, propped quietly upon her lap, was gazing earnestly at his mother across the hearth.

  “How delicate he is,” Alice pronounced, allowing the child to take hold of her little finger. “Nay, Dickon, we do not suck on fingers,” she told him gently as he pulled it toward his mouth.

  Cecily chuckled. “But I pray you, look at that chin. I have not seen such a determined chin on any other of my children. He will not let go of life without a fight, this one. Will you, sweeting,” she cooed at him. Dickon gurgled happily, making them both laugh.

  How quickly her oldest boys had grown up! Ned and Edmund were now entrusted to a tutor in their own small household at Ludlow. She had cried all the way to Shrewsbury when she had left them earlier that month, knowing that it might be months before she saw them again. If the truth were told, she had not felt well on the journey to London. When she complained to Constance of the lingering ache in her back and lower belly, the doctor had listened carefully and given her tincture of foxglove to make her sleep among the cushions in her carriage. Seeing Richard again and being welcomed into the Salisbury household had cheered her considerably, but now that the men had left for a session of Parliament at Reading, her discomfort seemed more pronounced today.

  “What think you of my son Warwick?” Alice asked, pride glowing in her face.

  Cecily nodded, beaming. “He has gro
wn into a handsome man, I must say, despite being encumbered by the Beaufort nose.” Privately Cecily found the twenty-five-year-old earl a trifle aloof and lacking the kindness of his father. But to be fair, I was only with him for one day, she thought, and perhaps he was intimidated by his father’s and Richard’s raucous recounting of shared exploits as comrades-in-arms in France. “How does it feel to be a grandam, Alice?” she asked. “Isabel is the child’s name, is it not? A pretty name.”

  “And a pretty child, sister,” Alice responded. “But as her mother is reluctant to leave Middleham, I do not see my grandchild much.” She frowned. “What of Anne, Cecily? You do not speak of her.”

  It was true, Cecily thought guiltily, I hardly ever think of Anne. She belongs to her husband’s family now and is in the capable hands of Alice’s aunt. But such is the lot of a girl born into a family of our rank, she mused. They must leave home at an early age to learn from strangers how to become a lady. How fortunate I was that Richard had no family and he was my father’s ward. She well remembered her sister Nan’s departure from Raby for Humphrey Stafford’s home.

  “My Anne is in London at Coldharbour at present, so Richard tells me. The children and I will see her soon. ’Tis hard to believe she will be fourteen in August and will take Henry to husband.” Then she laughed. “Do you remember how frightened I was at fourteen, Alice? I must thank you now for your sage advice. You were quite right.” She lowered her voice so that Margaret could not hear. “I did learn to enjoy my husband’s advances.”

  They both giggled like children. It was as though the years had melted away and they were back in the tester bed during Alice’s confinement reading Master Chaucer’s bawdy exploits of the wife of Bath.

  “Ah, Alice, how good it is to laugh again. I fear my thoughts have been too morbid these last three years since leaving Ireland. Every time Richard and I are parted, I am terrified it will be for ever.”