by Anne O'Brien
We were mounted, Hal ablaze with excitement, Bess stoically determined – for I would not leave her at Waterton’s mercy while I was impressed by Lancaster’s determination to wipe out all traces of opposition. I would never have believed that he would lift his hand against me. I had been wrong.
‘I’ll come to you when I know what the King intends.’ The Earl held out his hand. ‘Take care of them.’
I found myself placing my hand in his in tacit recognition of the importance of this agreement between us, although my reply was acerbic enough. ‘And myself?’
‘Of course. You are the royal mother of my heir.’
A truce indeed. I almost forgave him.
‘When you get to Alnwick lock the gates and open them for no one but myself.’
We rode hard and fast, no great distance, less than a dozen miles, and a good road, but far enough without protection to feel Sir Roger Waterton dogging our steps. If he had sent out scouts, anticipating such an escape, then we would be vulnerable. I found myself praying silently that his confidence in his success would overrule any such necessity. Perhaps he had hoped that we would not be warned.
We rode without caution, ignoring weary limbs and compromised breathing. This was a need for speed; the fox must outrun the hounds. Every noise, every shadow, every innocent merchant or pedlar on the route, made my heart thump. There were few travellers but we stopped to exchange the time of day with no one. They shrank back to let the Percy banners pass.
What would I do if Hal was taken prisoner? I could do nothing if my own freedom was curtailed. The mighty earldom of Northumberland was at risk; I must reach Alnwick in time, for Harry’s sake, for Hal’s. For my own.
At last. The day was dipping into soft dusk as we drew rein before the massive barbican. Soon we would be safe, the children delivered into the hands of their household with orders given to the captain of the guard to prepare for an unfriendly visit. I found that I was shivering with the fears that I had suppressed throughout that long day.
Perhaps I had not truly realised, until my own freedom and that of my son was threatened. Perhaps I had not tallied the full cost of treason for those on the losing side, but then had we not thought ourselves to be invincible? We had not seen failure but only the weakness of Lancaster, the increasing number of those who would turn against him and make alliance with us. Now I had to face the reckoning. To take me into custody, as well as Hal and even Bess, would rid Lancaster of an ongoing Mortimer menace. But he would also have designs on the power of the Percys, and who would own the mighty Earldom of Northumberland. With the heir in his hands, Lancaster would be able to pipe the tune to which we must all dance.
And what of the Earl? I had no compassion but I recalled his demeanour as we had ridden out. A little stooped, greyer, his face palely drawn beneath the marks of determination to resist. He would never give up the earldom this side of the grave but there was a desiccation, a weariness about him that I had not seen before, as if his life juices were being drained from him.
Which caused my breath to catch. Did he weep for Harry? He would not tell me or allow me to know. Surely there was some grief, some sense of loss within, some softness within that hard carapace.
I had no compassion. Harry was dead and Hal under threat. It was a relief when the great gates of Alnwick closed at my back. Had Harry seen this eventuality? I set about contacting Sir William at Berwick. I would need all the help I could get.
No army appeared on our horizon. No Waterton with his royal command to haul me into Lancaster’s presence. No William Clifford either. Instead, on the following day it was the Earl, hot on my heels.
I was at his stirrup before he dismounted where I was immediately aware that all his old energy was back; he tossed his helm to a page and stripped off his gloves, ordering the steward to bring ale and meat to the hall as he pushed his hair from his brow. Much as Harry would have done.
‘Well, my lord?’ I was striving again for courtesy.
‘Waterton arrived, as we knew he would, but without the cannon. I told him he was wasting his time, that you were here at Alnwick and the gates shut against him. If he wanted to escort you and the boy to London he would have to wait for the King and the cannon to force a hole in our walls or starve us out.’
‘And he went away without recourse?’ It sounded an unlikely outcome. ‘I see he did not shackle you and drag you south to answer to Lancaster.’
‘There was a negotiation of sorts.’ I kept pace with him as he entered the hall. ‘King Henry invites me to York.’
I halted. So did the Earl.
‘Invites you. Is it a trap?’
‘I doubt it. The King has a surprising streak of chivalry under his Lancastrian skin. If he invites me, he will not condemn me unheard.’
Which was a true enough reading, once I would have thought. Now I was not so sure. ‘And will you go?’
‘I will. Am I not a loyal subject?’
‘Whose son died in blatant insurrection, sword in hand.’
The Earl finished draining a cup of ale, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, once more the tough border warrior.
‘Whose son died as a result of deliberate royal provocation. But provocation can be healed if the King has a mind to it. I will answer the King’s summons and sue for mercy, acknowledging him as my King.’
‘Does he promise he will spare your life, if you make suitable submission?’ I watched the tinge of colour creep into the Earl’s gaunt cheeks. ‘Will he promise the Earldom of Northumberland for your heirs for ever if you are full of remorse?’
‘I will do all that is necessary.’
My courtesy was at an end. ‘Make sure you do not wear away the paving with too much kneeling, when you lick his royal boots.’
‘Enough…!’
I did not wait to hear the outburst of anger. Had I not spoken the truth?
Thus the Earl rode south to York, where it seemed that Henry of Lancaster had made his base while he dealt with the intransigent north, and I went with him, bearing a dread mission that grew in its enormity with every mile we covered. Sunk in introspection, the Earl did not question my movements, even though I gave no explanation. I did not have to. We both knew what awaited us before we even came into Lancaster’s presence.
We took a small private retinue, no armed force; we were in the mood for subjection, and much else.
I would risk my imprisonment. If Lancaster were willing to offer a truce and safe passage to the Earl, I did not think he would be so graceless that he would imprison me, and my son was safe, left behind with Sir William behind the strong walls of Berwick. Now I would risk all, to appeal to my cousin’s mercy. I needed to see him, to argue my cause, and if he would not, if he remained unbending – for who would blame him if he turned his back on the wife of the man who, a friend turned enemy, had sought his blood on a battlefield – then I must destroy my own pride. If I must grovel on my knees before Henry of Lancaster, then that is what I would do. I would join the Earl in abject abasement.
Micklegate Bar, York: August 1403
Here were the walls of York, by which time the lurking dread in my mind had reached the black, sweating consistency of a storm cloud. Before Micklegate Bar, the vast fortification guarding the road into York from the south, I drew rein. So did the Earl, my silent companion, and our escort. Our horses fidgeted to move on, but we held firm, our retinue uneasy, eyes sliding from what awaited us.
‘This is what we achieved,’ I said. ‘This is our bane, and will be for all time.’
Slowly, holding my breath, I raised my eyes. Had we not made a deliberate detour to enter the city by this particular gate? We had been forewarned. Never, knowing exactly what I would see, had I needed such an effort of will.
‘Look up, my lord of Northumberland. If I can look up, so can you.’
But he already had. I could not fault his courage.
I controlled my mind, my throat, my belly as I forced my muscles into obedience to look up to the cre
nellations that topped the defences dominating the entrance to the city. My lips were pressed hard together, my hands curled into fists around the reins, nails digging into my palms, but I kept my back straight, my head proudly raised. I would commit this deed with all the honour of my Plantagenet blood.
What would a King do with the head of a traitor, killed in blood? He would take that head and display it in all prominence to warn others of what might be their fate if they too lifted a sword against the crown. He would make an example of the owner of that head. A humiliation. A deliberate bringing low of one of the proudest of families.
Could I bear to look on this remnant of the man who had meant all to me?
Harry’s head had been impaled on the barbican. Or what there was left of it which had not been ruined by carrion and weather and the passage of time. The remnant of skin was grey, the hair lank. I looked no further at the power of carrion beaks against the soft flesh of eyes and mouth. Aware of the destruction I would have covered my face with my hands, blocking my sight, but that would have been the way of a coward. I forced myself to look. He had died for my cause at Shrewsbury. The least I could do was acknowledge it. I would not hide from the truth.
‘This is the cost of your failure to march to Shrewsbury,’ I said.
There was no reply. The Earl’s face beneath the rich folds of his chaperon was almost as grey as that of his son.
It hardened my heart against Lancaster. Had this been deliberate, to place Harry’s head here so that we must ride beneath when we obeyed the royal summons? If his purpose was to intensify my grief then he had succeeded more than he could possibly have imagined. I was rent with pain.
The Earl bowed his head in formal acknowledgement of his son. So did I.
Where the rest of his body was, I did not know. That was in Lancaster’s remit, to make the country cower in fear. We rode on beneath the barbican, so that we could see its dread burden no more. But I could sense its presence. Wherever I was in this tainted city, I could sense Harry’s degradation.
‘Well, my lord? I see that you accepted my invitation.’ Lancaster’s watchful eyes moved from the Earl to take me in as I rose from my curtsey. ‘Perhaps I am surprised to see you too, Elizabeth.’
He had taken up residence at Friar’s Manor, accepting the palatial hospitality of the Order of the Franciscans as he had once before on his way to invade Scotland when Harry had ridden willingly enough at his side. Awaiting us in a room furnished with exquisitely carved chairs and tapestries that impressed on us the sufferings of Christ, Lancaster proved to be as uncompromising as I had expected when we made all necessary recognition due to the man who wore the crown. We would not antagonise him by denying respect in these first minutes, but this would be a difficult meeting. I could expect no less, yet I did not fear for our safety. As the Earl had said, we had been invited with safe conduct.
Plainly clad in wool and dark damask, more soldier than monarch, Lancaster dominated the room and the meeting, his words directed at the Earl, as was the spike of his anger.
‘I gave you office. I gave you authority in my name. I gave you lands. I gave you what moneys I could spare, although you will deny it. I gave you castles to hold in my name and yours.’
He paused, his fingers, rigid in his anger, splayed on his hips.
‘And how did you repay me, Percy? You and your son raised arms against me. You raised your flags in battle against me and drew your swords. You would take the crown from me and set up a Mortimer in my place. On my throne. A Mortimer with Percy advisors. Do you expect a gracious meeting? I can think of no reason why I should not confine you – both of you – to some cell to live out your days there. Except that I said I would not. I invited you here to allow you to speak.’
All delivered on a level, with no explosion of passion. He had had time for his ire to cool, to be replaced by cold recrimination. Now he raised a hand to snap his fingers for a servant to provide a stool for me. He made the Earl stand. The servant was dismissed. What more there was to be said would be said in private.
‘Have you nothing to say to me?’ he demanded.
‘In my own defence,’ replied the Earl, as calm as Lancaster, magnificently deferential, ‘I did not actually raise my standard against you, my lord.’
‘So they were not Percy standards Waterton counted at Tadcaster? Or before the walls of Newcastle?’
‘They were mine, my lord.’
‘But you say you were not complicit in rebellion with your son.’
‘No, my lord. I was not complicit.’
‘It is not what I hear.’
The Earl was solemn in his denial. ‘The common gossip is false. Those who would scar my reputation as a loyal subject do me an injustice, my lord. I had no intention of taking the field against you.’
‘You had not agreed to join forces with your son and Glyn Dwr.’
‘I had not.’
I could not bear it. Every word was a nail in Harry’s coffin, a coffin that had been denied him. Was this to be the Earl’s defence, that he had been entirely divorced from it all, as if he had had no communication with Edmund or Glyn Dwr? I could see the plan forming in his devious mind. He would argue that he had no army ready in marching order at Tadcaster, that he had not been in agreement with Harry’s march to Chester. I had spent the miles from Warkworth considering how the Earl would answer Lancaster’s accusations. Now I knew the worst of it.
‘So perhaps you will explain to me why you had an army under your command when Westmorland and Waterton crossed your path in Yorkshire.’ Lancaster was determined to pursue the truth, as I forced myself to concentrate on the nuances in this confrontation.
‘They mistook my purpose, my lord.’ The Earl remained steadfast in his original premise. ‘My forces were to keep the peace in your realm. Did you not give me the office of Warden of the March, to achieve just that? And I have achieved it, as you know, my lord, mostly at my own expense. The country is uneasy, ripe for uprising. That is the reason for the existence of my army in my Yorkshire lands. Also, my lord, as you will know, I need those troops to win the lands along the Scottish border you so graciously granted to us.’
‘I did indeed give you that office, and the promise of those lands.’ There was no hesitation in my cousin, and no softening either. ‘I believed that of all the families of England, I could trust the Percy blood, so closely connected with my own. But perhaps you would also care to explain to me your involvement in a plot that forced me to fight a bloody battle against my own subjects, in my own land?’
‘I was not party to it, my lord.’
Lancaster barely hesitated. ‘I find it impossible to believe you.’
Whereupon the Earl sank to his knees, head bent in what I knew to be a parody of regret, but how well he did it, the ageing magnate on his knees, plainly clad in abasement, appealing to his King.
‘I put myself at your feet, my lord, in awe of your mercy. I knew nothing of this rising. The plan, the construction of it and the intended outcome, if it was to promote the Earl of March as a threat to your throne, was the work of my son alone. I had no involvement in it. I held no meeting with the Welsh rebel or with Sir Edmund Mortimer, although I know, to my regret, that my son did. I for my part knew nothing of it until I heard of your victory on the battlefield. My son disobeyed me when he took the field against you, my lord.’
Whereas I had not flinched from observing the brutal wounds inflicted on Harry’s head, now I closed my eyes. I could not bear to look at the Earl. Excuses I had expected. Wily arguments, of course. Even a pitiful demand for forgiveness. But this. This I had never expected.
‘I find that hard to believe also,’ Lancaster was observing at the edge of my consciousness. ‘A marvellous division in Percy ranks? I think not. If your brother and your son raised their standards in Glyn Dwr’s cause, I think you would be neither ignorant of it nor far behind in joining forces with them. You three were ever hand-in-glove.’
‘It is so, my lord. My so
n was always impetuous. His marriage to the Lady Elizabeth encouraged him to look to the Mortimers as a possible claim to the throne in your stead. I warned him that it was dangerous. I advised him against it in the name of loyalty, but to no avail.’ His face turned fractionally to where I sat, as rigid as one of the saintly figures in the tapestry behind me. ‘Perhaps the lady is not entirely blameless in this. She would encourage my son in his defection to the Mortimers. It was her closeness with her brother Sir Edmund Mortimer that drew my son into the Welsh net with Glyn Dwr.’
So he would throw me to the wolves as well. My chest was tight, my breathing shallow, my throat too dry to swallow. What sort of betrayal was this? Far worse than Harry challenging Lancaster to fight for the crown on equal terms. The Earl had just repudiated the close regard between father and son, and stabbed me in the back.
‘As for my brother of Worcester,’ the Earl was continuing, ‘I regret his decision to throw in his lot with my son. I did not believe him open to such persuasion.’
When Henry slid a glance in my direction, I spoke up for the first time through that appalling denunciation during which the Earl had abandoned his son and brother and implicated me. I would be honest too. I stood to deliver my verdict.
‘I knew what was planned, my lord. I both knew and approved. I did naught to stop Sir Henry when we met with my brother Edmund and with Glyn Dwr. It needed little persuasion on my part, but you should know that I supported the rightness of the Earl of March to wear the crown. If you are looking for blame in this, you cannot exonerate me despite the closeness of our blood. Sir Henry and I stood shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and I will not beg for mercy on my knees. My nephew should be King of England.’
‘Well, at least we have truth here.’
‘You have the truth from me, sir. I will leave it to your judgement to assess the worth of Northumberland’s confession.’
‘Stand up,’ Lancaster ordered. And when the Earl was once more on his feet: ‘You will come with me to Pontefract, my lord of Northumberland.’ The smile on Lancaster’s face was like a crack in an icy pool, unnerving in its chill. ‘There we will decide on your punishment, for your lack of involvement in insurrection. I will leave you with your daughter to enjoy the outcome of this interview. I doubt it will be pleasant for either of you.’
