Shene had been beautiful in May, Cecily admitted, remembering the placid waters of the Thames flowing past the many-turreted palace set in the green countryside, where herons, swans, coots, and kingfishers all vied for food along the reeded banks. Otters frolicked in and out of the water, and on the other side of the river, pretty little roe came down at dusk to drink.
Cecily soon made her own wishes known for the running of the palace, and she had brightened several of the gloomier rooms by having them freshly whitewashed with lime. Margaret of Anjou had spent summer months here or at Greenwich, and her marguerite cognizance was in evidence in all the royal apartments. Cecily had to admit that the queen had good taste and so chose not to spend more money redecorating. Instead she had her seamstresses make several gray and purple gowns in cooler silk and light worsted as well as the regal cote she wore now. If she was to be in mourning, she insisted on being in fashion.
As the barge drew closer to Westminster, she thought back to that sunny June day when Edward had finally come back south. He had had a triumphant entry into London and then had joined his mother and sister at Shene for some well-deserved merrymaking. The reunion would have been joyful enough if Edward alone had returned to her, but he had brought a surprise.
“George! Dickon!” Meg had been the first to cry out upon seeing the two boys enter the great hall. Cecily could not have described the joy she felt when Dickon ran headlong into her arms.
She looked over at them both now, heads together and pointing at something on shore, and she smiled. They had changed and yet they had not changed, she decided. They had learned some pretty manners from Isabella of Burgundy, but they still fought fiercely with each other and made up again just as before.
She then found Meg seated in front of the boys in the barge with her two pretty young attendants, Jane and Ann, newly sent by Edward as a favor to their fathers. She sighed. Meg was still too outspoken, but Cecily admitted that she would rather have her clever daughter than those two ninnies any day. She settled back on the cushions, feeling happier than she had in a very long time. And in three days, Edward would be crowned king of England. How could life be better? She refused to answer that. She knew the answer in her grieving heart.
The king’s barge floated just ahead of them, music and laughter wafting back. Edward was in scarlet cloth of silver, an ostrich feather waving from his bonnet. His head was thrown back in laughter. He had enough character and spirit for two men, she thought, and then winced. Aye, enough for both of her splendid eldest sons. Poor, sweet Edmund, how he would have delighted in his brother’s fortune. But with his sensitive nature, perhaps he was better off with the angels, she suddenly thought, then chided herself for such a notion. It was then that she recognized the young man in the barge who had made Edward laugh so heartily. It was Jacquetta of Bedford’s son, Anthony Woodville. He and his father had submitted themselves to Edward after the battle at Towton, so Meg had told her. She wondered where Jacquetta was now. She had not come to Shene with her son. Ah, well, good riddance.
It was not long before the towers of Westminster appeared, and the limed walls of the city in the distance reflected the afternoon sun as the barge was eased to the palace wharf. Edward’s party had already disembarked, and Edward stood waiting to help his mother off her boat.
Lifting her with ease, he held her aloft for a moment, grinning. “God’s bones, my lady, but you are as light as thistledown,” he exclaimed. “We shall have to see to it that you have all the delicacies the kitchen can provide at the feast here on Sunday. We cannot have the noblest lady in the land wasting away, can we?”
Cecily would have admonished him soundly but for her preoccupation with Edward’s poetic phrase, “light as thistledown.” Where had she heard it before? She took his arm and walked toward the entrance to the royal lodgings, searching her memory.
“A penny for your thoughts, Mother,” he said, smiling.
“’Tis naught, Edward. Someone else made the same remark about thistledown many years ago, ’tis all, and I was trying to remember who.”
“Was it someone other than Father?” he whispered. “Nay, that I will not believe.”
Relieved that she chuckled rather than reprimanded him, Edward bowed, making his excuses about a council meeting.
Cecily watched him stride confidently along the wharf arm in arm with Anthony Woodville. “As light as thistledown,” she repeated. God’s bones! Where else had she heard herself described that way? At that moment Anthony Woodville turned his head to look up at Edward, and the gesture reminded her of Jacquetta. Then she remembered. The image of another figure leaped into her head, one as tall and strong as Edward, also with gold-red hair but bearded. “John Blaybourne!” she cried aloud, making Gresilde turn on the stairs to look at her.
Certes, it was her faithful archer, and she felt guilty because she could not quite remember his face. Traipsing up the staircase, she relived her adventure to Les Andelys and riding out alone with Master Blaybourne, accompanied only by her dear Constance. And poor Piers Taggett had fired an arrow at them, believing Blaybourne had abducted her.
And then in a blinding flash she knew why Jacquetta Woodville had made the odd remark about baby Ned that day in the nursery. “He looks like a Norseman,” the woman had said. Dear God! She suspects Ned is Blaybourne’s son. Cecily frowned. Surely no one had ever really questioned that Ned was Richard’s. Richard had been with her at Rouen a little later in August, she recalled, dismissing the tiny knot of worry in the pit of her stomach, and she could have conceived then and had Edward a little early. Nay, if there had been a rumor, it would have surfaced long before now, she reassured herself, relieved and amused. Cecily was sure Jacquetta would have relished the chance to spread a rumor if she thought she could get away with it, but she had not.
“YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, my lady,” Meg said shyly, watching her mother in violet silk circle her, making sure that every fold of the blue cloth of silver gown was in place, her headdress was straight, the gauze prettily cascading down her back, and every wayward hair plucked from her fashionably high forehead. Meg’s attendants stood respectfully at a distance, holding their collective breath, knowing the duchess of York was fastidious when it came to dress.
Cecily smiled her thanks at her daughter in the polished silver mirror and then frowned. “Too many rings, Margaret,” she murmured, and removed a large one from quite a collection on her daughter’s fingers. “You must learn the value of quality over quantity, my dear.”
“How long will the coronation service be?” Meg asked eagerly. “I have been too excited to eat anything today, but perhaps I should, even though we have swans, pheasants, peacocks, subtleties, and marchpane to look forward to.”
Cecily clucked her tongue. “Do be sensible, Meg. Certes, you must eat something. We cannot have one of the royal princesses swooning in the abbey. Mistress Herbert, send for some bread, cheese, and ale for your mistress. And when you have eaten, Meg, come and join me in my solar before we walk over to St. Peter’s. Thanks be to the Virgin for the glorious day outside. At least we shall not all look like drowned dogs when we enter the abbey.”
The female members of Edward’s family were to be seated on one side of the choir with the other noblewomen present. Cecily led the way down the nave of the magnificent abbey church at Westminster, with the bishop of London in front setting the pace. The ladies, clothed in colorful velvets, silks, and satins that shimmered in the glow of hundreds of candles, swayed slowly from side to side in a rhythmic walk to the organ’s plangent notes. Hundreds of the lesser nobility, the gentry, and city officials were crammed into the nave cheek by jowl, craning their necks to glimpse the glittering procession in the nave.
Cecily’s long train was carried by two very different Margarets: her own fifteen-year-old daughter held up one corner and towered over the only child and heiress of Richard’s erstwhile enemy John Beaufort, first duke of Somerset, who held up the other corner. Eighteen-year-old Margaret Beaufort’s
small, thin frame and long, pained face paled in comparison to Meg’s stature and fresh, young beauty. Cecily had felt sorry for the girl when, at only thirteen, she had become pregnant by Henry’s half brother Edmund Tudor. The difficult birth of her son not long after she was widowed had almost killed mother and child, and tongues had wagged about Tudor’s unconcern for the girl’s youth when he had consummated their marriage.
“Despite her Beaufort blood, she is as royal as we are, Mother,” Edward had told Cecily upon informing her of the honor he was giving the two young women. “I pray you will be kind to her, for she has done us no harm.” And Cecily had acquiesced, unable to resist her son’s most entreating smile.
They were now through the intricately carved rood screen, which separated the nave from the choir and chancel and would block the view of the coronation chair to all but an elite few. Cecily found her seat and took pleasure in her surroundings. The soaring arches above her were painted in gold leaf, as were the turrets of the choir stalls behind her. Despite the golds, greens, blues, and reds of the motifs that decorated the stone columns, the dark wood of the choir misericords, and the many colorful banners that hung overhead, there was airiness and light in the magnificent church. Cecily’s heart was full of awe for the palpable presence of God all around her and full of wonder at the spirits of those who had worshipped there for hundreds of years before her.
She felt the skin on her arms prickle as the organ crescendoed in a thunderous roar and the choir in the balcony above the great west door sang out an introit. Edward must be approaching, she thought, taking a deep breath and feeling her heart swell with pride. She glanced to her left at her daughters, whispering among themselves, and delighted in them: Nan, her smile brighter now that she was formally estranged from Exeter and accepted under Edward’s roof; dear down-to-earth Bess, whose neighing laugh would always remind her of Richard, and who had sadly miscarried in March; and her clever Meggie, who was in need of a husband, if what she had heard about the girl’s flirtation with that handsome young herald was true. She was showing signs of being as interested in the opposite sex as her eldest brother was, Cecily sighed.
The lords were now filing through the arch in the rood screen, and she watched as the opposite choir stalls filled with faithful, familiar faces from the past: Richard’s brother-in-law, Lord Bourchier; her sister Katherine’s son, John of Norfolk; Bess’s young husband, John de la Pole, whom Edward had promised to restore as duke of Suffolk; her brother, William, Lord Fauconberg; and others who bowed their heads in greeting when she caught an eye.
Conspicuously absent, but for reasons known only to him, was her nephew, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick. Alice had said he had chosen to remain in the north to shore up support there for Edward with his brother John, the hero of Carlisle. But Cecily suspected that it was because a small rift had begun to appear in the bond between the two popular cousins, despite Edward’s protestations to the contrary. As much as she respected the earl, Cecily was happy that he had left Edward sole recipient of the Londoners’ adulation.
She turned her attention from thoughts of Warwick to her own two boys, Dickon and George, now seated across from her and well aware they were being watched. She thought how small they seemed in this vast abbey, despite their noble robes of blue and silver depicting them as new members of the Order of the Bath. What will become of them? she wondered, as she heard the cheering crowds outside the abbey welcoming Edward into the vestry. Edward had given George the dukedom of Clarence, one of the many titles he had awarded to faithful Yorkists in honor of his coronation. Today George was at his sunniest as he grinned across the aisle at Meg, but he would need to curb his temper and his moods before he would be half the man Edward was, Cecily admitted. George had a winning way with him, but she knew how quickly that charm could sour.
Then her gaze fell upon her youngest child, earnestly perusing the pages of a prayer book, and as he felt her watching him, Dickon raised his head and smiled. Cecily’s heart turned over. Richard! she wanted to cry out. Those same gray eyes crinkled just like his father’s, and his jutting chin and inclination of the head almost made her believe she was seeing Richard all those years ago at Raby. Even though he was perhaps harder to warm to than his brothers, Cecily knew that beneath his quiet facade, Dickon’s heart was true and his loyalty unflagging. Richard had taught him well, she thought, as she turned her ruby betrothal ring, taking comfort from its familiarity.
Ah, Richard, was your sacrifice worth it? she asked herself again.
The organ swelled again to accompany Edward down the nave, and, when he appeared from the rood screen, as one the whole of the assembly in the chancel went down on their knees. Hers and Richard’s magnificent son! King Edward the Fourth of England. It was hard to believe.
And then he was walking slowly by Cecily, godlike in his purple velvet mantle heavily trimmed with ermine, his face solemn in keeping with the occasion. She glanced up at him and was horrified to see him wink at her. She crossed herself hurriedly. I must have dreamed it, she thought, watching him climb the few steps to the dais on which stood King Edward the Confessor’s ancient chair.
The ceremony began with a blessing by Thomas Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury, and for an hour the congregation remained on its knees. Edward was stripped to the waist and anointed with oil, his broad, muscular back revealing several freshly healed scars from his recent battles. Cecily winced, remembering a few upon Richard’s body that she had soothed with salves when they were in Normandy. A sudden twinge of guilt assailed her as she thought of the thousands of lives that had been lost over the years for this day, but she was too intoxicated by the moment to contemplate whether their sacrifice had been too great.
Then it was time to reclothe God’s anointed in a robe of cloth of gold and for him to sit upon the great gilded throne to receive the trappings of kingship. First the heavy orb was placed into Edward’s right hand. Next the archbishop picked up the silver scepter and the rod from the altar, blessed them, and returned to Edward. “Receive the royal scepter, the ensign of kingly power and justice,” he intoned. “Receive the rod of equity and mercy.”
The archbishop of York took the jeweled crown on a cushion to Canterbury, who lifted it high to the crucifix upon the altar. “Bless we beseech thee this crown and so sanctify thy servant, Edward, upon whose head this day it will visit as a sign of royal majesty.” He turned and again stood before Edward, the crown raised aloft for all to see.
How did we get to this place, Richard? Cecily thought, unabashed tears of joy coursing down her cheeks. If you are watching today, my love, I ask that you send your blessing down upon the head of your son as he is crowned, for there can be no doubt that but for a cruel turn on the wheel of fortune, it would have been you in that chair today. She watched, entranced, as Archbishop Bourchier slowly lowered the golden crown upon Edward’s head and cried in a loud voice: “God Save the King!”
At once every man, woman, and child in the abbey and likewise those in the streets outside took up the cry: “God Save the King! God Save King Edward!”
As Edward rose and turned to greet his subjects, Cecily was suddenly reminded of Jeanne d’Arc’s long-ago prediction in the cell at Rouen: Cecily of York, you will be the mother of kings, the martyr had told her.
And so I am, she thought, transfixed. Praise be to God.
Author’s Note
As a writer passionate about history, I revel in researching the facts, but as a novelist I relish the license to invent when the dramatic possibility is irresistible. And in that spirit, I must come clean about a few of those possibilities that I could not pass up.
The first is Cecily’s pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage in Rouen. Why Cecily and Richard did not produce their first living child until 1439, when Cecily was twenty-four, has puzzled historians. We know Cecily and Richard were betrothed in 1424, when they were nine and thirteen respectively. There was nothing to stop them solemnizing a marriage when Cecily reached the legal
age of twelve, and there is no reason to suppose they did not marry close to that time, especially as we know that Richard and Cecily were in Countess Joan’s household in London in 1428 and that, according to the Calendar of Papal Registers, Richard received an indulgence in 1428: “for the duke of York and his duchess a portable altar and to choose a confessor . . .” (my italics). So then, why the long wait before starting a family? Once they started, they produced thirteen and possibly fourteen children, so Cecily was certainly not barren. But in most history books you will see 1438 as the date of their marriage, with Anne appearing in 1439. I say “rubbish” to the later date. I had good reason to conjecture that Cecily had miscarried at some point, and I chose for it to happen in Rouen for my story. Thanks to an obstetrician friend, I learned that the damage to the womb might take a long time to heal and resist impregnation following a miscarriage that was the result of a traumatic injury after the first trimester—such as falling from a wobbly scaffold face first onto cobblestones. Further, we know that Richard was absent on many occasions in those seven years and for long periods, which would put a spanner in the works for would-be parents.
I also discovered a couple of genealogy charts that mentioned a Joan as being the Yorks’ first child, but she is missing from many of the better-known charts, probably because she died and was buried before proper registration. I chose to include her as she gave me an excuse for shortening the length of time between the miscarriage and the next pregnancy. Also, it was usual to name a daughter for a grandmother, and as Cecily was with her mother for so long, it stands to reason one of Cecily’s daughters should have been named Joan.
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