Queen of the North

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘And Roger too,’ I said, revealing none of my emotion for what was past and buried. ‘You have grown so tall. Would I recognise you in a crowd?’

  It was six years since I had seen them. Grown tall, they were still youthfully angular, but now exhibited a nod to fashion and a confident demeanour as befitted the Earl of March and his brother. They bowed where once they might have run to me. I was not allowed the courtesy of speech alone, a cleric accompanying us, but he took himself to the far corner of the room, to study his missal. If his ears were trained on our conversation I could not tell, and I doubted that he would hear anything incriminating. Now that I was here, conversation escaped me. What to say to two young men who might never experience true freedom? To a young man who was old enough to wear a crown and take control of government in his own right.

  ‘Madam Elizabeth.’ They were impeccably mannered too under Lancaster’s tutelage. ‘We did not expect you.’ Edmund took my hand and raised it formally to his lips.

  ‘Are we to be released?’ Roger asked, less circumspect.

  ‘No.’

  ‘We did not expect it,’ Edmund said, as if he felt a need to offer me solace. ‘Will you take a cup of wine?’ Spurred into action by a mere glance from his brother, Roger poured and presented a cup to me and to Edmund.

  ‘It is not within my power to have you released,’ I said.

  Edmund gulped the wine in a desultory fashion, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think it is in anyone’s power to have us released.’

  A statement of fact rather than any passion.

  ‘We are to stay here at Sir John Pelham’s will,’ Roger added.

  ‘But we have been made welcome,’ Edmund confirmed.

  ‘I am sorry that you are not at Windsor.’ I sought for something that would break the glass between us, that would perhaps ignite the enthusiasm I recalled when they were young and exuberant. Anything but this dour acceptance of imprisonment. They were too young to be robbed of any hope.

  ‘The hunting was better at Windsor. This is a bleak spot,’ Edmund admitted.

  And so it was on this windswept site overlooking the Channel, a gift to Sir John Pelham in return for his support when Lancaster had returned from his enforced banishment. Its solid and encircling towers and high walls gave it all the appearance of a prison.

  ‘I had to leave my hound at Windsor,’ Roger admitted. ‘Perhaps Sir John will give me another.’

  ‘I presume Lancaster sent you here to punish you for the work of others,’ I said, then regretted it. It was not well done of me to stir their hearts with my antagonisms.

  ‘But it was not the King’s doing, madam.’ Edmund was quick to reply.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Sir John. It was the Royal Council. They decided we needed more secure custody, to prevent another escape. It was only then that the King sent us here to the hospitality of his loyal counsellor.’ He must have seen the frown in my eye. ‘We do not dislike Sir John. He allows us to ride out, with an escort, to hunt and hawk. We have books and music. We are allowed every comfort.’

  ‘Then it seems that I must not blame your uncle of Lancaster. Although would he not have been able to persuade the Council differently, if he had wished to do so?’

  ‘I do not know, madam.’

  Seeing that I had troubled him, I turned the conversation into more comfortable areas. ‘Are you allowed money of your own?’

  ‘Yes. And we have a clerk to see to the spending of it.’

  I lifted the long over-sleeve with its intricate stitching, which made him grin. ‘Fine feathers.’ I put down the cup, untasted. ‘I can do nothing for you, Edmund.’ Roger had wandered away to talk to the cleric. I could hear him laughing, which was some balm to my soul. ‘I am here because my conscience troubled me, that you were alone with none of your own family to be concerned about you. We have not done well by you.’

  ‘And we are grateful.’ How solemn he was. ‘We know that we have not been forgotten.’ A little line appeared between his brows. ‘We regret the death of our mother, without our seeing her again.’

  ‘She suffered that you were not allowed to return to her, even for a short time.’ And then, because I must speak of it: ‘I am sorry for what happened.’ Since Roger had returned, I caught a quick glance between the young men. ‘You look as if you have been involved in mischief,’ I said.

  ‘It was exciting!’ Roger was suddenly alight with all the exuberance of youth that he had earlier shed.

  ‘It was dangerous,’ I advised. ‘Plots do not always have happy outcomes.’

  But Edmund was stern in his judgement. ‘It was dangerous, but far better to have risked it all and joined up with my uncle Mortimer and the Welsh lord.’ Again he glanced at Roger, returning the grin. ‘It was exciting.’

  ‘Better than being here. Or Windsor.’ Roger nodded in agreement.

  And I was forced to acknowledge the tedium of long days with seemingly no purpose, their time planned for them, their actions curtailed. Edmund looked beyond me as if seeing that night when all hung in the balance. ‘We rode as if the devil himself was behind us, like the wind. We knew the King’s troops would follow us. We barely stopped to eat or drink, but rode on and on, Lady Constance encouraging us. We thought we had succeeded. Surely we would not be caught.’

  There were the high spirits, lit by that frightful ride through the night. Only to be quenched in abject failure.

  ‘And then the royal troops surrounded us,’ Roger explained.

  ‘And now we are back behind locked doors,’ Edmund completed the tale.

  My heart was wrung for them. ‘Perhaps one day the King will show leniency. When he feels secure again.’

  Edmund, older than his years, agreed. ‘It may be so. We understand. Our blood is the problem for a Lancaster King. Perhaps we will never be completely released from surveillance of one sort or another.’

  We had tried. Oh, we had tried, and we had failed them.

  ‘Has Sir John talked to you about the future?’ I asked as Edmund accompanied me to where Lord Camoys waited for our departure.

  ‘I am to become part of Prince Henry’s household. And Roger will come too.’

  ‘Will you enjoy that?’

  ‘Yes. I like him. I will like to go on campaign with him.’ The light was back in his eye. ‘And one day I will be allowed to marry. It is put into the hands of Queen Joanna. I can choose a bride on condition that I will marry only with the King’s consent and the Royal Council’s advice. And I hope one day to become a Knight of the Garter.’ Then he added, taking me aback: ‘If I was King, Prince Henry would not be so. He wishes it beyond anything.’

  ‘Have you no wish for it?’

  He thought for a long moment as he acknowledged Lord Thomas with another neat bow. ‘Why wish for the impossible? I would rather be free than King. I would rather have my own life to direct as I choose than the crown of England. I wish I could live at Ludlow again.’

  And Edmund bowed his farewell, unaware of the effect that those lightly uttered words had had on me. All we had striven for, so easily put aside. Harry’s death, all for naught. The countless dead on the battlefield at Shrewsbury, dead on both sides, England weeping in streams of blood. I would rather be free than King. He had so cruelly rejected all that had been done in his name, not even realising the wound he had delivered against my heart.

  A great well of tears lodged in my throat as Lord Thomas and I rode away from Pevensey, a vast space yawning in my breast.

  ‘Are you satisfied?’ he asked after graciously allowing me time to recover from so damning a blow.

  ‘Yes, if you mean that they are well cared for and indulged to a degree.’ I considered what I had learned. ‘We were more ambitious than Edmund of March will ever be. He does not seek the crown. He never will.’

  They were just young men, unaffected by great ambitions, merely straining to be free of the leash that Lancaster had placed on them. And then because honesty forced me:<
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  ‘It was the Council that sent them here. It seems I have misjudged my cousin.’

  ‘Many do. He is not an easy man to know.’

  ‘But you are his friend.’

  We turned our horses in the direction of Trotton, one of Lord Thomas’s manors.

  ‘We all need friends, Elizabeth.’

  I thought it was the first time that he had used my given name. It made me feel more alone than ever. Who could I call friend? What a desperate meeting it had been, with no purpose, no achievement except for my continuing pain. Nothing but that I must accept the futility of it all; the failure for these young men; despair and desolation. I was relieved that Harry had not lived to see it. He would have found it impossible to accept that the hand of the Percy family could achieve so little.

  Lord Thomas proceeded to drive the final nail into the coffin of my hopes.

  ‘It might be politic for you to remember that Henry has four sons. As a dynasty they are secure. If Henry dies, he has able young men to step into his shoes. The Mortimer cause is dead.’

  It was cruelly, brutally done and painfully accurate. All I could hope for was that one day my own son would come home and Lancaster would allow him to take up his own threatened inheritance. All would depend on the Earl of Northumberland making peace with the King who had placed the attainder on him.

  All I could do was pray that he would.

  Meanwhile in the little church of St George at Trotton, I made my vows and exchanged the wild Marches of the north and the west for the soft country of Sussex.

  Queen of the North. Once that had been my ambition. Wife to the Earl of Northumberland when Harry came at last into his inheritance, aunt to the Mortimer King of England, a woman of influence within royal circles. Now I was Lady de Camoys, wife of a baron, a royal counsellor, with little status except for that borrowed from my husband. My royal blood held no power in the Camoys manors. I did not care. An empty hollow existed where my heart might have been.

  Late in that year after I wed Lord Thomas de Camoys, on an occasion when Thomas was absent on royal business, a letter was written by my hand that I never thought to write.

  To His Grace the Earl of Northumberland.

  Even if he no longer had a right to that title, I would not demean him further.

  I have sent this in hopes that it reaches you.

  It was my understanding that he was returned from France and was in Wales again, seeking shelter once more with Glyn Dwr and Edmund.

  It must be clear to you that all possibility of a successful uprising against the Lancaster King is at an end. You are under threat of attainder. Your title is no more, your lands under royal control, your castles in the hands of others. Your heir is disinherited.

  I have spoken with my royal cousin. There is only one hope, if you wish your heir, Henry Percy, my son, to return from Scotland and take up his rightful place at Alnwick. Lancaster is willing to receive you and listen to you if you are prepared to make your peace with him. He was compassionate once before when you sank your pride and begged forgiveness. He will not be hard-hearted if you can find it in you to throw yourself on his mercy and come home. He has given me his word. We would both enjoy seeing a Percy in residence in Alnwick again.

  You need not fear Lancaster’s revenge. He will listen if you will accept your guilt and make restitution for the future. It may demand reparation with a heavy fine, but it will not be with your life.

  For the sake of my son and Harry’s I ask that you will return and make peace.

  Your daughter by law

  Elizabeth Percy

  Now Elizabeth de Camoys

  It was all I could do in a bid to have my son return home. I had married Thomas de Camoys to mend my reputation with Lancaster. The least the Earl could do was return and make redress.

  Before I sent it on the long journey to discover the Earl, I sought out my husband on his return: ‘You will wish to see this.’

  I held it out to Thomas, barely giving him time to remove the sable pelts that lined his cloak in this bitter weather, giving no cognizance to his preoccupation. He took it but did not immediately read it. Instead, looking briefly at the superscription, he said: ‘That you should write to Northumberland fills me with trepidation.’

  ‘It should not. There is no treason here.’

  ‘Are you asking my permission to send it?’

  ‘No. As a good and trustworthy wife I am making clear my loyalties.’

  He read it, with a growing frown.

  ‘It will do no good, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He made me sit, so I knew it was bad news. I also accepted how divorced from court affairs I had become since my marriage, that I was unaware of whatever hammered the groove between Thomas’s brows. Once, after Harry’s death, I had isolated myself; now it had been forced on me.

  ‘Tell me what you know, that you have just discovered and of which I am ignorant,’ I invited, a hard knot expending beneath my heart.

  Thomas hitched a hip onto the edge of a substantial travelling chest that had arrived with him. ‘The King will never pardon him now. Northumberland left Wales for France, to negotiate with the French King, making a bid for French support for Glyn Dwr’s new offensive against England.’

  ‘That I know…’

  ‘But you will not know this. That to win over the French King, the Earl formally renounced his oath of fealty to King Henry. The result was a French expedition to Milford Haven, where it was greeted by Glyn Dwr who must have been delighted to see such a vast source of French power.’

  ‘I have heard of no battle,’ I said.

  ‘There was no battle. Storms washed away King Henry’s baggage train and persuaded the French knights that they had no wish to spend a winter in Wales.’

  Which I realised was not the end of it. Lord Thomas had not mentioned Northumberland’s involvement in Wales. ‘And so?’

  ‘And so – not in the best of moods, my lord the King arranged for Percy’s trial in absentia by the Court of Chivalry, which was not inclined to be compassionate. London is awash with the news of a French landing as you can imagine. All that you feared has come to pass. Percy was attainted by the court. All his titles, honours, estates and chattels were declared forfeit. The southern properties now belong to the King’s son, John. Northumberland House in Aldersgate Street is in the Queen’s gift.’

  It could not be worse. Thomas delivered the final blow against the Earl ever being reconciled with Henry of Lancaster. ‘A man who negotiates successfully to bring a French army into the country cannot hope for royal restitution.’

  ‘No. He won’t return now,’ I agreed.

  ‘And the King will not forgive.’

  All lay in pieces at my feet. I realised that Lord Thomas was holding out the letter to me.

  ‘That’s not all, Elizabeth. The death sentence for treason has been passed against him.’

  ‘Then what use in my sending this?’ I lifted the carefully constructed missive from his outstretched hand.

  ‘None. None at all. Your only hope is that Percy retires from combat and allows my lord the King time to forget and for old wounds to heal. The King will never forgive him, but he may find it in his heart to be lenient to your son.’

  I carried my letter to the fireplace, preparing to drop it into the flames, only to be brought to a halt by a fierce memory. The two letters from Alianore and Philippa when Henry of Lancaster had recently set foot in England. When we were still in doubt of the future and Harry had warned me of treason. Burn them, he had said, and so I had, with no real insight into where we would all be in the future.

  For the moment it seemed that Harry stood beside me, but it was only a trick of imagination. I could do no more to bring about my son’s restitution. I cast my letter into the flames, with a brief prayer that the erstwhile Earl of Northumberland would never again pick up his sword in battle against Henry of Lancaster. If he did, any chance of my son’s return would be consumed int
o ash, along with my plea.

  I slid into it as neatly, as smoothly as a hand into a kid glove that had been made for me. It was not difficult. I had been bred up to know what was expected of me. What was my life with Lord Thomas de Camoys in this manor of Trotton in the rolling hills of Sussex? It was gentle. It had a serenity. Lancaster had given me a punishment that was within my spirit to accept, and so I pretended a contentment, for my new husband’s sake, but there was none in my mind or in my heart. All I had lost ate away at me, making me sharp with those over whom I now held sway. I could not envisage my future as Lady de Camoys with any tranquillity, so I merely tolerated what many would have said was good fortune indeed, while bitterness buried beneath my skin, giving birth to an icy resentment of all around me.

  ‘Bitterness will harm no one but yourself. It will destroy you.’

  I saw Lord Thomas’s concern for me.

  ‘I have no kindness in me.’

  Yet I did my best because Thomas deserved a good wife. He was long-suffering and generous with his good humour when the demands on his time did not take him to court or to his other manors. I tried to be the wife and mistress of his household that he might hope for, but in truth, I saw myself living out my days, all my life behind me, my vision of the future rotten to the core.

  Thomas and I had a son together in that first year, a quick, bright-eyed child. To my eye he had no Mortimer features, but Thomas declared he had a distinct connection with me, notably in his fierce stare. His hair was dark when he was born and his blue eyes soon became grey. We called him Roger, which was my choice and which Lord Thomas was gracious enough to allow. It was not a name favoured within his family but it meant much to me.

  Sometimes, in a glancing sunbeam that lit the infant’s face, he reminded me of Hal, now so far away from me. Reluctant as I was to allow my heart to be engaged, I grew to love him, but I missed Hal, and it grew no easier as the weeks and months passed. All I could do was hold fast to the belief that Bishop Henry Wardlaw was a good man who would raise him as I would wish, and that the Scottish court would see his value, even though his inheritance was compromised. Was Hal happy? Such a facile thought, but one that troubled me. I must accept that his future was out of my hands.