This Sun of York

by Susan Appleyard

  Anne looked stunned. As if she hadn’t been betrothed for seven years. As if she hadn’t really believed this day would ever come. On one level she had known she would have to leave Fotheringhay, her family and friends and the servants who had waited on her all her life, everything and everyone she had ever known. But no matter how often she was reminded that she must do this or that right because as she would be required to do it with excellence as Duchess of Exeter, that day had always been far in the future, too vaguely distant to have any bearing on her present. Now the days remaining to her of childhood were suddenly and shockingly finite.

  “That is good news,” she said bravely and tried to summon a smile, although her eyes were as startled as those of a doe trapped in a thicket by a pack of hounds. “When, Mama?”

  “Not for some time yet. You may go.”

  Anne walked sedately to the door and closed it quietly behind her. She stood where she was for several moments staring at nothing before the door opened and Lady Say came out with her cloak.

  “Don’t worry, my dear. It is something we must all go through, and we manage somehow to survive.”

  “I’m not worried.” She swung the cloak around her shoulders and dashed off to her boring lesson.

  Deportment meant not just learning how to sit, stand and walk, but also how to curtsy, rise, lower oneself and how to mount, dismount and ride a horse. That was today’s lesson, but since horses were not allowed in the schoolroom, a contraption somewhat resembling a horse’s back had been suspended from the ceiling and fastened to the floor to keep it steady and provided with a lady’s saddle. Up went Anne, arranging her skirts so that only the toes of her black and white leather boots showed. Then down she came, hands on the shoulders of David Hall, one of her father’s squires, his hands on her waist, up and down ad nauseam, and all she could think about was her betrothed.

  She had only one memory of the Duke of Exeter. It was at the betrothal ceremony, which had taken place in the chapel at Fotheringhay when she had been seven-years-old and hadn’t really understood the significance of the occasion or of the youth who had stood briefly at her side. All she could remember about him was that he had a spectacular array of pimples. What his other features were like, how well arranged, she could not recall. Only those livid pimples had stuck in her memory.

  Since then she had never seen him, nor received any word from him. Her mother tried to excuse this lapse by pointing out that even the boldest of young men were apt to be reticent when it came to their bride-to-be. Her sister Elizabeth received letters from her betrothed, young Suffolk, and even if they were all about dogs and horses and boastful feats of arms, Elizabeth was pleased enough to read choice parts to anyone willing to listen. Anne would have liked to receive word from her betrothed, to know him just a little.

  ……….

  The Duchess had returned to Fotheringhay for the Christmas season, the Duke remaining in London to attend to his affairs. But Epiphany was past and Anne’s brothers, Edward and Edmund, had been packed off back to their home at Ludlow in the Welsh Marches, and the Duchess delayed setting out. The state of the roads at that time of year was excuse enough, but Anne learned through servants’ tattle that her mother determined there would be no April or May wedding as the Duke wished. Anne’s birthday was in August. Fifteen was soon enough for any girl to wed in the Duchess’s opinion.

  It was well into March before the journey began, with the five children bundled in their warmest cloaks in three carriages. Many baggage waggons trundled behind, all piled high with the furnishings and personal possessions needed by the Duchess, her children and her ladies for a lengthy stay in London. Also in the wagons were many items that would go to Anne’s dowry: some beautiful chased silver cups set with rubies, a chess set with pieces made of jade and ebony, an ornate prie-dieu complete with prayer book bound in red leather and tooled in gold leaf, chairs and footstools and two carpets from the East. An escort of one hundred men rode before and behind, dressed in blue and murrey livery, to guard the family against the dangers of the road. The banners of York were borne aloft by pursuivants and snapped smartly in the turbulent March winds.

  The journey was tediously long. Cecily had never made it before with her children, and it required a different timetable than when she travelled alone. There were scheduled stops for a mid-day meal about an hour after Sext and a final stop for the night at about an hour after Tierce, as well as any number of impromptu stops in between to relieve small bladders. No sooner had one child done so and the carriages started off again than another would have to go. Four-year-old George was the worst; he did it just to be annoying. A lovely roly-poly child with plump cheeks ageing women liked to pinch between thumb and forefinger – an indulgence for which they risked getting bitten or kicked – alone of the children he travelled in the same carriage as his mother and two of her ladies. George needed a sharp eye kept on him at all times.

  The three girls travelled with two of their young attendants and Lady Say to keep order. Because he was sickly and had only just begun to walk even though he was a year and a half old, Dickon had a carriage to himself with his nurse, a wet-nurse, a physician and two more of the duchess’s ladies.

  They stayed in religious houses or occasionally in the home of a friend along the route and with luck supper would be waiting for them when they arrived or soon after. Then the children would be allowed to go outside to burn off excess energy, except Anne who was no longer considered a child, before evening prayers and bed. Next morning the servants would have to repack everything that had been unpacked the day before, and everyone would hear Mass and eat breakfast before squeezing back into the carriages. At every overnight stop, the servants heated bricks to warm the ladies’ feet, but it was still a chilly journey. Worse, as Lady Say complained frequently, was the infernal jolting. The vehicles made the occupants teeth rattle as they bounced and lurched over ruts and potholes frozen hard as iron by frost.

  The girls didn’t mind the discomforts a bit. Anne and her sisters had travelled to France and Ireland, but in England, they lived in castles remote from the turbulent events that were part and parcel of their parents’ station in life. This would be their first journey to London, and they were very excited.

  As they neared the city, the girls bounced in their seats. Lady Say put an end to that by pulling down the leather blinds, for fear of what horrors their young eyes might see. This act caused such an uproar of protests and pleas that she relented and lifted the blinds again, keeping a vigilant eye open and ready to close them on any sight unsuitable for the eyes of her young charges in the bawdy, boisterous, bloody city. Three eager young faces peered out the windows. Their first view was of the wall, and it was even higher than the one at Fotheringhay, with ramparts on its top and buttresses along its length. The carriage rolled into the shade of a huge gatehouse. The guards would normally stop and question anyone entering, but they went on without being stopped, under the iron teeth of the portcullis, which could be lowered to block the gateway in case of attack, though Anne couldn’t imagine anyone being foolish enough to attack a great city like London.

  Lady Say said it was called Aldersgate, and on their right was Greyfriars, and beyond the monastery they might catch a glimpse of Newgate Gaol. Anne and Meg scrambled to the other side of the carriage, fighting for space with Elizabeth, who wasn’t about to give up her prior claim. The gaol was a squat almost windowless edifice with a gated arch leading into its dread interior. The carriage came to a halt where Aldersgate Street met Chepeside, which is where, Anne remembered Lady Say’s son had had his head cut off. How horrible for her to have to pass the place, she thought, suppressing a shudder. But when the carriage rolled across the intersection, she saw only a busy, bustling street, full of interesting-looking shops and taverns. Ahead now, said Lady Say, was St. Paul’s Cathedral.

  Outside and just inside the walls many of the houses were hovels made of wattle and daub, like peasants’ houses, some no more than lean-tos b
uilt against the town or other stone walls, with thatched roofs and leather coverings for doors. But as the carriage descended toward the cathedral, the houses began to look more prosperous, with the ground floor made of stone and the upper of weathered timbers. Some had chimney pots and shutters over the windows, and some even had glass! They were not very wide, but quite deep, and the upper floors were cantilevered so that in a narrow street the sky would be almost blotted out and neighbours could shake hands with one another from their windows. The effect was like a thousand people stuffed into a city built for half that number. It was a little overwhelming to girls coming from the open and flat country of Northamptonshire.

  They could see St. Paul’s spire above the tile roofs long before they saw the cathedral itself. It was the tallest spire in a city boasting over a hundred spires. They drove slowly along the front of the cathedral. It had some magnificent stained glass windows and a façade adorned with intricate stonework. There was an open space in front of the massive doors and all sorts of people to ogle. Anne had only moments to take it all in. She saw a handsome carriage, like the one they were in, pulled up in front and an old lady dismount on the arm of a liveried servant. Two knights on horseback glanced their way for a moment, then lifted their noses into the air and looked away. Hawkers cried their wares. Monks and canons hurried hither and yon. Amid all the bustle, a woman sat on the steps yoked to a placard that read ‘adulteress’.

  “What’s an adulteress?” Anne asked Lady Say.

  “A wicked woman.”

  And then they were past and in a bustling street, full of colourful shops. Ramshackle stalls were crammed into any tiny open space between the buildings, and vendors stood on the corners of intersecting streets offering hot pies or sausages from baskets. It was a very busy street, and the carriage rolled along slowly, hampered by other traffic.

  “I should have insisted on keeping the blinds closed,” Lady Say said crossly. “The people here stare so!”

  This was undoubtedly true. In the country, the peasants doffed their caps and lowered their eyes when a noble carriage went past, and townsfolk might peek discreetly, but here in London, they stared shamelessly. Now that the carriage was travelling slowly some bold souls began to trot alongside and peer inside at the occupants. When a carrot-haired youth with slime hanging from his nose thrust a dirty hand inside the carriage, Lady Say slapped his wrist smartly, and when he withdrew it, pulled down the blinds. Alarmed, the girls offered no protest.

  Upon their arrival, pandemonium reigned in the great hall. Some of the sumpter wagons were already lined up in the courtyard, and a stream of servants carried the baggage in while higher echelon servants directed them where to put it all. The Duchess’s household followed her in to exchange greetings with the Duke’s household. The chamberlain barked orders, and the castle servitors moved among the new arrivals offering refreshments. The Duke’s wolfhounds were everywhere underfoot, unable to find a quiet corner to lie down in peace.

  On the dais at the far end of the hall, the Duke was talking to two knights when his family arrived. As the uproar increased, the two made their excuses and left, bowing to the Duchess on their way out. Anne and her sisters followed their mother to the dais. She had always found her father rather formidable – not stern exactly, but remote and authoritarian, and whenever he took the trouble to speak to her, she had the feeling that he was distracted as if his mind was elsewhere. Which was probably true. She knew her father was an important man and she was proud to be his daughter.

  He came down from the dais to greet Cecily with a genteel kiss on the hand, and then turned to survey his three daughters with a rather pleased air as they curtsied gracefully in unison, and his mouth turned up at the corners. “Look at them, Cec,” he said with pleasure. “Like flowers of the field bending in the wind.”

  In token of her new maturity, she could only suppose, he also kissed Anne’s hand.

  “Your sister is soon to be wed. Next, it will be your turn,” he said to Elizabeth, and then turned to seven-year-old Margaret. “And how does my little Meg?”

  “Very well, my lord father,” the little girl said without shyness. “Father, may I go see the Royal Menagerie?”

  “I think that can be arranged – providing you don’t try to bring any of the animals home with you.”

  The Duke smiled at his little joke, but Meg, thinking him serious, said: “I won’t. I know they belong to the King.”

  Richard was brought forward in the arms of his nurse with his head sagging against the great shelf of her bosom as if he lacked the strength to hold it up. He was the only one who resembled the Duke in colouring, with dark hair and solemn grey eyes. “I see the little one thrives,” he said, but the statement wasn’t true

  Bruised looking sockets holding lacklustre eyes, a yellowish pallor, large cranium tapering to the tiny pointed chin, he had been sickly from birth, prone to chills and fevers and wracking coughs. When he wasn’t ill, as now, he was listless, had to be coaxed into eating, and, at almost a year and a half, his stick-thin legs had only just taken their first tottering steps.

  Anne knew everyone expected Dickon to die and she had been told not to become overly fond of him. But he bravely weathered every crisis, and she thought it harsh not to love the little boy while he was with them. He clung tenuously to life but did not thrive. When his father tickled him under the chin, he turned his face away.

  George had now entered the hall. With a happy shriek, he escaped all restraining hands and launched himself at his father, clinging tightly to his legs. The three girls gaped. Never would they have dreamed of using their august parent in such a manner. But, then, George had yet to learn the rudiments of proper behaviour. The Duke suffered this affront to his dignity for a while but when his efforts to shake his son off failed he summoned a nurse to remove him. Predictably George began to howl, adding a new dimension to the uproar.

  ……….

  The Duke was delighted to be reunited with his wife and to hear the voices of his children filling the empty chambers of the house with their laughter and shrieks and quarrels. The Duchess, however, wasn’t very happy and her mood had nothing to do with the discomforts of travel or George’s peccadilloes. When the children were in bed and all necessary duties attended to, and they were finally alone in their bedchamber, Cecily said, as if resuming an earlier conversation. “I won’t have it. Fourteen is too young.” She had sent her tiring woman away and was sitting opposite her husband beside the banked fire.

  The Duke looked at her blankly. ”What?”

  “Anne. She is far too young.”

  “Most girls blossom into womanhood when they are fourteen or fifteen. Best get them wed before that blossoming leads them down sinful paths.”

  “From the vantage of my thirty-eight years and the perspective of motherhood, even fifteen seems terribly young to me. She won’t be fifteen until August. It won’t hurt to delay the wedding until then.”

  “It won’t hurt not to, either. If she’s not ready for marriage now, a few more months aren’t going to make any difference. You’re too attached, Cec. That’s a mistake.”

  He was right, of course. “I just didn’t expect it to be so hard,” she said almost to herself. “I wish I could believe that she’ll be happy with Exeter. What’s he like now? Has he got rid of those ghastly pimples?”

  Seated beside the fire with a sheaf of papers in his hand, York said: “Aye, and not bad looking. Not that it matters.”

  “Oh, I just hope he’s nothing like his dreadful father. If half the things they say about him are true, he was an unregenerate monster.”

  “If half the things they say about me were true, I’d be hanging on a gibbet at Tyburn,” the Duke said wryly. He laid his papers aside and reconciled himself to a discussion of family matters. “Young Exeter will be an important man in the kingdom, I feel sure of it. He already holds a demanding post, that of Keeper of the Seas. I think we’ve done well by her, on the whole.”

 
Cecily stared into the fire. They were ambitious for their offspring; nothing was more natural. Elizabeth too was betrothed to a Duke: Suffolk, son of the slain minister. For Edward, their eldest son, her husband was bidding for nothing less than a French princess. They were, all of them, sacrifices on the altar of the god Family Fortune. That was the reality.

  Cecily sighed and changed the subject. “What’s been happening in Parliament?”

  “Well, I won the battle of Thorpe,” he said with a wan smile, “but it was a hard fight. As soon as the Commons resumed sitting, they demanded that I release him on the grounds of parliamentary immunity. I told them I was unable to do that because I would have no surety for my damages and, besides, he was arrested while Parliament wasn’t sitting. The Commons then referred the matter to the Lords, but they refused to intervene. I may not be popular with them, but in a matter like this, they are far more likely to side with one of their own than a Commons trying to protect one of its own from the consequence of his larceny. The Lords referred the matter to the Chief Justice, Sir John Fortescue, who rightly declined to intervene because the justices are in the business of upholding the laws that are made by Parliament and therefore Parliament is the higher court and any decision regarding its privileges is the purview of the Lords. Sir John then added a warning that if Parliament used its privileges to set aside a civil judgment, it would undermine the entire system. This was enough for the Lords to rule that the Commons should elect another Speaker.”

  “Sir John sounds a bit of a whiffler,” Cecily said stifling a yawn.

  “More of a stickler than a whiffler.”

  “Are the Commons very uncooperative?”

  The Duke sighed and shifted his weight. “Very. They could hardly be worse if Thorpe were in the chair. So much pointless irritations and obstructions, not to mention insults, accusations and name-calling that it’s hard to get any business done. If I could just take a score of the members and tip them into the Thames, life would go much smoother.”