by Anne O'Brien
Nothing.
At the end, I knelt to touch the slab beneath which Hotspur lay, so cold against my palms. There was no sense of his vibrant spirit which had helped to carry him to his death and me to my despair, but I was suffused with a flash of burning, aching pity for these two proud men who had come to the end of their earthly days in such desperate circumstances.
‘You led your life as the fates dictated,’ I said. ‘I would have had it no other way. You were Hotspur, and I loved you for it. Rest at ease. There are no more battles to fight. Your father is with you so that he too may rest. I will care for your son if I can, and your daughter’s future is assured.’
And then:
‘You will always remain in my heart as the brightest of memories. While I am alive, so will you be, because I will never forget what we were to each other.’
I stood, and walked to where Thomas awaited me, so that he could take my arm and lead me into the nave and then to the great west door that was open. We stepped from the chill into the warmth of a summer day.
I shivered.
‘What persuaded you?’ Thomas asked as we stood on the forecourt for a moment, absorbing the warmth, before walking towards our waiting escort. He had been deliberately forbearing, not questioning my change of heart.
‘I took your advice.’
‘Really? Which piece of advice was that?’
I enjoyed his deliberate levity as we waited to allow a party of merchants to pass, self-important in their guild robes, badges and gold-fringed chaperons.
‘You suggested that I had been as culpable as the rest. It was as you had said. I was not without sin. And I needed peace.’ I sighed a little. ‘Call it selfish if you will, but I would never have that until I had made my peace with the Earl.’
Still we stood.
‘I was blind to Harry’s faults, or if not blind, I was too willing to overlook them. To me they were not faults, only part of the essence of him as a man. And I had much to say about the rights of my nephews. It was a cause that we both embraced. No, I was not without blame in the disasters that followed.’ I was aware of the sun warm on my face, a blessing. ‘I knew I had been at fault, but I would not acknowledge it. I bore the pain of my guilt as my punishment. And now… well, I will say no more than that.’
It seemed to me that I had said quite enough.
‘Nor do you have to. I will never deny the power of love between a man and a woman. Perhaps one day your son will regain the title and the inheritance, during this reign or more likely the next. There may be a proud Percy Earl of Northumberland yet to set his foot in the north.’
‘Perhaps.’
I had not told him of the King’s promise, if that was what it was, but there was hope. I could do nothing but leave his future in the King’s hands.
It was becoming easier to think of him as King Henry.
‘Is there less weight on your heart?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you wish to do now?’
I looked at him, seeing the soldierly figure, the slight stoop when he was weary, the curl of his hair against his cheek where the frisky wind had blown it. I knew that his hands were gentle, and so were his lips. No, he would never compare with Hotspur, but he was a man of superb integrity, worthy of appreciation by a sensible woman.
I looked past him, seeing vistas that owned an importance only for me. Edmund still in Harlech. Glyn Dwr fighting for his survival, becoming more of a shadow by the day. Philippa dead. Alianore dead. The next generation living under restraint, except for Bess in the Clifford strongholds, with Dame Hawisia to keep her Percy memories alive with tales of Alnwick and her heroic father, if she would forget. What was there for me? What would my future hold? On that fair day in York I could not see it with any clarity.
‘Well?’
There was one request that I did not wish to make, but then I did not have to.
‘I know,’ Thomas said when reserve kept me silent. ‘I will escort you to Skipton and you can lavish your maternal affection on Bess. It is no distance.’
‘Yes,’ I said, unable to say more, for how well he had read me.
‘And then?’ he asked.
‘Then let us go home.’ That was also so easy to say in the end. I found that I was looking south rather than north. ‘Do you have work for the King or can you come with me?’
‘You used that title as if you had been using it all your life.’ There was a gleam in his eye. ‘I will come to Trotton. We have a son who will be forgetting what his parents look like.’
‘Roger will have no thought of what we look like. He is less than one year old.’
‘Then high time we were arranging a marriage for him. Think of his value, with Plantagenet and Mortimer blood in his veins.’
I found myself smiling, the faintest sense of warmth wrapping round my heart. I would not yet call it happiness, but it was undoubtedly a contentment. ‘I have missed my son. It will be good to return.’
Lord Thomas stooped, lacing his hands to help me to mount. Then as I arranged my skirts, he looked up at me.
‘Do you know? You smiled at me for the first time in weeks. It is a good habit.’
I touched his hand, where it rested against my horse’s neck, in thanks, enjoying the feel of his strength around my fingers as he turned his hand to enclose mine. Yes, I had made peace. With Harry. With the Earl. With King Henry. The past was behind us. We would look to the future, whatever it might hold.
‘If you were in any doubt,’ I said, ‘I value your being here with me. I regret that I am not the woman whom you love.’
For did I not know that his heart was given elsewhere? It always had been, as he had told me. And that she, as Queen, had no notion of it. Nor would that love have been reciprocated, even if she had been aware. Her heart was securely in the King’s grip.
‘And I will never be a second Hotspur,’ Thomas said after he had mounted and drawn his horse alongside mine. ‘But we have a son and a life together. It may not be a passion fitting for a troubadour’s song, but we can make of it what we will.’
I placed my hand in his and smiled again as he raised it with all formality to his lips. ‘We will make of it what we will.’ And then, freeing my hand, I sought in the thickness of the bodice of my gown, struggling with the catch. ‘Will you wear this on your travels?’
My action, my words threatened to resurrect a terrible memory, but this was what I wanted, for what woman would not do everything in her power to keep so understanding a man safe from harm? In my palm rested a ring-brooch, an old gem with royal connections, the gold soft, the engraving blurred and the claws that held the gems uneven. A brooch whose words I knew by heart.
This which you have fastened on saves you either by sea or in battle.
Thomas took it from me, reading the inscription for himself.
‘If you wish, although I foresee neither battle nor sea voyage between here and Trotton. But if it will give you peace of mind…’
Endlessly pragmatic, he had given me the answer I needed. It had not saved Harry, but then Harry had denied its power.
‘I wish it.’
Baron de Camoys pressed the brooch to his lips, then pinned it to the folds of his chaperon in jaunty style before we set out to visit my daughter and withstand the caustic greeting of Dame Hawisia. I did not look back. There was no longer any need.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My tale of Queen of the North would not have come to fruition on its own. My grateful thanks, as ever, to:
My editor Sally Williamson at HarperCollins for her invaluable presence, not least a willing ear when I wished to discuss the joys and miseries of Elizabeth Mortimer and her troubled relationship with Sir Henry Percy. Sally’s objectivity is beyond price, whereas after a year in their company I can be too closely involved to be objective. Thank you Sally for being a constant source of enthusiasm and encouragement.
My superb agent Jane Judd on whose clarity and honesty I know I can rely when my com
pleted manuscript is sent out into the world and she is the first to read it. My thanks to Jane for her support and advice in bringing my historical characters to life.
And not least to the whole team at HQ and HarperCollins, for their ever-professional dedication to me and to Queen of the North.
What compelled me to write about Elizabeth Mortimer?
Some of my favourite scenes in Shakespeare are those in Henry IV Part 1 between the magnificent Hotspur and Lady Kate. It is a relationship full of politics and power, one of conflict of personality and also of flirtation, of love and affection. As a couple they are very appealing and dominate the scenes in which they appear.
So who were they?
Hotspur, Sir Henry Percy and heir to the Earl of Northumberland, was such a dynamic, mercurial, glamorous figure in our history. The perfect hero. Brave and courageous, winning glory on the battlefield, he was also flawed, bringing his own downfall. He was more than tempting to write about. But what about Lady Kate? If I continued to follow my passion to write about medieval women, looking at history from a woman’s viewpoint, who was she? Had she anything of importance to add to the medieval scene? Would she be a suitable heroine to give depth to a novel?
It was a surprise and a delight for me to discover exactly who she was.
Historically Lady Kate was not Kate at all, but was Elizabeth Mortimer, one of the powerful Mortimer family that ruled over the Welsh Marches where I now live. I am surrounded by Mortimer castles, so immediately Elizabeth was of interest to me.
Great-grand-daughter of King Edward III, Elizabeth inherited royal Plantagenet blood through her mother Philippa, daughter of Lionel Duke of Clarence, King Edward III’s second son. This placed Elizabeth in the centre of the struggle for power from the Mortimer claimants to the throne after the death of Richard II and the usurpation of King Henry IV. All royal cousins, this would be another compelling family saga of power and treason, of betrayal and death. The Mortimer Earls of March had a strong claim to the throne even if it was through the female line.
Even better, Elizabeth’s story with that of Hotspur would also draw in a whole panoply of characters. Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, cunning, ambitious and manipulating, determined to keep Percy hands on the reins of power in the north of England. Owain Glyn Dwr, the great Welsh Prince, driven in his struggle for Welsh hegemony. King Henry IV, the Lancaster king, fighting hard to stabilize a dangerously uneasy country after the death of Richard II. And then Thomas de Camoys, a most sympathetic character who played a large part in The Queen’s Choice. What a marvellous set of characters to play with.
So why was I compelled to write about Elizabeth? Because of her Mortimer blood, she was a woman who deliberately took on the role of traitor to the crown in support of her nephew Edmund, Earl of March. She would know at first hand the resulting struggle between family loyalty and a desire to pursue what she saw as the rightful claim to the crown of England, despite all the pain it would bring her. She would also learn the constraints on her freedom, common to all medieval women. It is a story of loss and acceptance, of love and tragedy.
All is here to be enjoyed in Queen of the North.
And Afterwards...
Elizabeth Mortimer lived as wife of Baron Thomas de Camoys until her death in April 1417 at the age of 46. The monumental brass on her tomb, just less than life-size in St George’s Church at Trotton, shows her holding hands with Lord Thomas. She had a son with him, Sir Roger Camoys, who died without issue.
Thomas de Camoys outlived Elizabeth. He died in 1421 and was succeeded by his grandson Hugh de Camoys, issue from his first marriage. Thomas’s history is dealt with in much greater detail, as is his connection with Queen Joanna, in The Queen’s Choice.
Henry Percy, the Northumberland heir, was allowed to return to England and succeed to the earldom in 1416 in the reign of King Henry V, so becoming Earl of Northumberland and eventually recovering most of the estates. He married Eleanor Neville with whom he had children. He was killed, fighting on the side of King Henry VI, in the First Battle of St Albans and was buried in the Abbey of St Albans. We can presume that since Elizabeth did not die until 1417, she would have been reunited with her son on his return to England in 1416. I hope that it was a time of great happiness for both of them.
Elizabeth Percy married firstly John Clifford, Baron Clifford who died at the Siege of Meaux in 1422 in Henry V’s French campaigns. They had children together. She then married Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland by whom she had a son, Sir John Neville. Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII, was descended from Elizabeth Percy and John Clifford, thus giving Jane a drop of royal Plantagenet blood.
Sir Edmund Mortimer came to a sad end, as did his family. Besieged in Harlech Castle, he died there in 1409, probably of the plague, when the castle was retaken by the English. Edmund’s wife and daughters were taken into custody and kept in the City of London. Before the end of 1413 Lady Mortimer and her daughters were dead and buried within the church of St Swithin in London. A tragic story.
Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, remained in captivity during the reign of Henry IV but was released by Henry V and knighted on the occasion of Henry V’s coronation. He was declared of age and allowed to inherit his estates. He participated in the Normandy campaigns of Henry V and was appointed a royal councillor for the child Henry VI. As King’s Lieutenant in Ireland he died of plague in 1425 at his castle of Trim. His brother Roger had died at some point in 1409.
Owain Glyn Dwr’s attempts to consolidate his power gradually fell into disorder and lack of support after 1406. His ultimate life and death are clouded in mystery, becoming part of legend, with Owain living in caves across Wales or taking refuge with his daughters who had married into Marcher families. The site of his grave is conjecture but many like to think he ended his days at Monnington Straddle in the Golden Valley where one of his daughters lived after her marriage.
Henry IV died at Westminster in 1413, after years of declining health, to be succeeded by his son Henry V.
Queen Joanna was accused of witchcraft and kept in confinement, mostly at Leeds Castle, for more than two years. Her property and dower funds were all confiscated. She was eventually released and was never brought to trial, nor were actual accusations brought against her. Joanna continued to live in England at Havering atte Bower until her death in 1437. Her story is told in The Queen’s Choice.
Constance of York faded into obscurity after the attempt to rescue the Mortimer heirs. She was among the landowners ordered to remain on their Welsh estates in May 1409 to resist the Welsh rebels. She died in November 1416 and was buried before the high altar at Reading Abbey. Her child with Edmund Holland, Earl of Kent, was a daughter, Eleanor, who tried to claim her legitimacy but failed.
Archibald Douglas, 4th Earl of Douglas, after an eventful career in Scottish politics and diplomacy, fought in France for King Charles VII, and was created Duke of Touraine for his efforts. He was killed at the Battle of Verneuil in 1424 along with his second son and was buried in Tours Cathedral.
George Dunbar, Earl of Dunbar, continued to hold fast to his territory in the north and sought to gain more despite his advancing years, although he continued to suffer from lack of funds. His date of death is unknown, ranging between 1416 and 1423. He was buried in Dunbar Collegiate Church.
Tradition says that both the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Henry Percy were buried in York Minster in unmarked graves. The tradition still stands.
In the Steps Of ...
For those who would enjoy travelling in the footsteps of Elizabeth and Harry Percy, either in person or on an easy journey through internet browsing, here are the main historic sites where you might still, in a quiet moment, be able to sense their presence:
Alnwick Castle: the great Percy stronghold in Northumberland, the most important of all the Percy castles.
Warkworth Castle: the Percy fortress a mere ten miles from Alnwick, much enjoyed by the Percy family, being on a more intimate sc
ale.
There are a number of northern strongholds to be visited, all with Percy connections: Berwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Prudhoe Castle as well as Spofforth Castle in Yorkshire. A week of Percy castle-visiting in Northumberland is obviously required.
And Raby Castle, home of the Neville Earl of Westmorland, rival for power in the north.
Ludlow Castle: by 1400 the main Mortimer stronghold in the Welsh Marches.
Wigmore Castle: once the centre of Mortimer power in the Welsh Marches but became less important as Ludlow was developed. Now much ruined but its position is superb.
Wigmore Priory, where many of the Mortimers were buried, is privately owned and is not open to the public. There are very few medieval remains there because of destruction in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
There are many Mortimer castles worth visiting in the area – another holiday required. Richard’s Castle, Montgomery Castle, Clun Castle.
York Minster: possible burial place of the Earl of Northumberland and Hotspur. The graves are unknown and unmarked but historical imagination can overcome this.
Shrewsbury Battlefield: scene of the fatal conflict between King Henry IV and Hotspur. Well worth a visit although there is no battlefield guide as such. A visit to the Battlefield Church of St Mary Magdalene, erected under the command of King Henry IV on the site of the grave pit, is particularly moving.
Shrewsbury Market Cross: where the Earl of Worcester was beheaded and Hotspur’s body exhibited upright between two mill stones, to prove his death. The plaque is on the wall of the adjacent Barclay’s Bank.
St George’s Church, Trotton, Sussex: here is the splendid tomb with its ornamental brass of Elizabeth and Thomas de Camoys. However, genuine or not, it is the only evidence we have of Elizabeth’s appearance.
Pevensey Castle, East Sussex: the fortress where Edmund, Earl of March and his brother Roger were incarcerated (as well as Queen Joanna for a short period when accused of witchcraft).
