Francis gasped. “What saved him, Madame?”
“His gift for friendship,” she said, and smiled at his surprise. “When the Burgundians were negotiating for the marriage of their Duke to my daughter in the summer of 1467, Edward won the admiration and affection of one of their envoys, Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de la Gruuthuse. Most fortuitously, he is now Governor of the province of Holland, and when he heard of my son’s plight, he compelled the Easterlings to withdraw and gave Edward safe entry into the harbor.”
“It was a propitious day for York when the Lady Margaret did join her House to that of Burgundy,” Francis said warmly.
The graceful white fingers were suddenly still, linking in her lap. “I suspect Charles of Burgundy may think otherwise.”
Francis frowned. “But surely he will give aid to York? He is King Edward’s brother-in-law, after all….”
“As George is Edward’s brother.”
Francis stared at her. “Are you saying Charles will not help your sons, Madame?”
“I would say that he…lacks enthusiasm for such a venture. He wants no war with England, and if he backs Edward, he gives Warwick reason to join forces with the French King against Burgundy. He can scarcely deny his wife’s brother refuge, but he refuses to meet with him, and Edward would be hard-pressed, indeed, were it not for Gruuthuse’s generosity.”
She gave Francis a sober, searching look. “They had little more than the clothes they wore when they fled England, after all, and Edward had only a cloak of marten fur to give to the captain of his ship.”
Shaken, Francis could think of nothing to say. His fear had been that Edward and Richard would not reach Burgundy. Once there, he’d taken it for granted that Charles would give them the gold and soldiers they’d need to challenge Warwick. Now his mind was filled with one image and one image only: Edward Plantagenet, King of England and France, Lord of Ireland, paying for passage with a fur-lined cloak.
The Duchess of York did not seem uncomfortable with the lengthening silence. Rising, she brushed aside his helping hand and crossed to the prie-dieu that faced the hearth. Picking up a coral rosary, she fastened it about a slender wrist and then turned back to the boy, who was regarding her with anxious eyes.
“Tell me, did you ever take notice of a pilgrim token worn by my youngest son? A small silver coin graven with a Latin cross?”
Mystified, he nodded. “Yes, Your Grace, I did. As I recall, he was never without it during our years at Middleham.”
A magnificent arras hanging covered the entire east wall of the chamber, an elaborately detailed depiction of the Siege of Jerusalem. She was staring past Francis at the tapestry, tracing the familiar intricately woven patterns of topaz and russet as she said, “When I was in my fifteenth year, I was stricken with the tertian fever. I was not expected to live…and my favorite brother vowed that if I did, he would make a pilgrimage to the Blessed Shrine of St Caecilia at Trastevere.”
She gave him a distant smile. “I did live and he kept his vow and I wore his pilgrim pledge on a silver chain around my neck for nigh on thirty years.”
Francis made a properly pious reply, hoping his face did not betray his bafflement.
“When my husband, my brother, and my son Edmund were murdered at Sandal Castle, and my nephew Warwick defeated at St Albans, I feared for the lives of my youngest sons, resolved to send them to safety in Burgundy, beyond the reach of Lancaster.
“That night I removed the pilgrim cross for the first time. I fastened it around Richard’s neck and I entrusted my sons to the mercy of the Almighty, not knowing if I’d see them again in this lifetime.”
Francis did not know the response expected of him. It was a vivid, poignant tale, yet told as dispassionately as if she were relating her household accounts.
“I’m sure he wears your cross even now, Madame, and it will safeguard him as once it did before.”
“Richard is no longer eight years old,” she said icily. “He is quite able to fend for himself.”
Francis blinked. “Madame?”
“I find your pity presumptuous, as I do your assumption that I am a grieving mother to be indulged and consoled with platitudes. I assure you I had quite a different purpose in mind when I related that story.” Her lip curled. “I have my failings, Francis, but I am never maudlin.”
“No, Madame, indeed you are not,” he agreed, so fervently that she relented, said with uncharacteristic patience,
“I wanted you to understand how it was here in the city when word reached us that Warwick had been beaten at St Albans. I knew what would happen when London fell to Lancaster. The night that I hastened Richard and George aboard ship for Burgundy, I fully expected the Lancastrians to be in London within hours. The city was in a panic. Shops were boarded up; men were frantic with fear for their wives and daughters; the streets were deserted as if it were a plague town.
“All seemed lost. And then, by the grace of God, came word from Edward. Warwick had reached him with the dire news of St Albans and he rallied a force, was racing Hell-bent for London.
“On February twenty-sixth, nine days after Warwick lost St Albans, Edward won London. You will never in your lifetime see such a scene as greeted him upon his entry into the city.” A smile came and went, so quickly he couldn’t track its passage. “On that day, Londoners made his cause their own.
“Three days later, a deputation of nobles led by Warwick came here to Baynard’s Castle and, in this very room, offered him the crown.
“His coronation, however, had to wait. In just eleven days, he mustered a fighting force and marched north. He overtook Marguerite’s army at Towton, twelve miles from York. The battle was fought in the worst snowstorm in years and lasted ten hours. When it was over, they say the River Cocke Beck ran pure crimson and twenty thousand men were dead or dying. And Edward had the victory.
“Just three months lay between my husband’s death at Sandal Castle and Edward’s triumph at Towton. What my husband could not do, what Warwick could not do, Edward did…while still a month shy of his nineteenth birthday.
“Do you understand me? My son and I have often disagreed. He is a true Plantagenet and given to sins of the flesh and a prideful arrogance which served Warwick all too well. But this I do tell you for a certainty…that nothing on God’s blessed earth shall keep him from returning to claim what is his. If Charles of Burgundy refuses him aid, he’ll seek it from Francis of Brittany or John of Aragon…and if need be, from the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.
“I know my son. He will return…and when he faces Warwick across a battlefield, he will prevail.”
“Yes,” Francis said softly. “I do believe that.” Honesty compelling him to add, “I have to believe that.”
Cecily looked at him. “So do I,” she said evenly.
18
Westminster
November 1470
As October yielded to November, the weather took a nasty turn. Snow had begun to fall at dawn on Friday, All Souls’ Day, and by the time Elizabeth Woodville had been delivered of her child, the city was at a standstill, as a storm of unwonted savagery swept the streets of all signs of life and churned the Thames into an icy froth, spreading fears of flooding in the low-lying bankside and driving all but the most foolhardy boatmen to the shelter of tavern and alehouse.
Alison, Lady Scrope of Bolton Castle, was returning to the Jerusalem Chamber in the Abbot’s lodging, which lay within the confines of the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter at Westminster. It was here that Elizabeth had sought sanctuary for herself and her children.
Elizabeth had received a warmer welcome than the grudging admittance accorded those unfortunates of lesser rank who came to claim this ancient right of refuge. Thomas Millyng, the Lord Abbot, had received the wife of the exiled Yorkist King as if she were still the consort of a reigning sovereign, turning over his own private quarters for her use. She was far more comfortable than she would otherwise have been, but Alison was willing to concede that this
was still quite a comedown for a woman accustomed to the splendors of the royal palaces at Westminster, Eltham, Windsor, and Shene.
Alison was balancing on a small wooden tray a steaming mug of raspberry-leaf tea. Not that she expected Elizabeth to need its known therapeutic benefits. Alison had seen few births as easy as this one, and Marjory Cobb, Elizabeth’s midwife, had concurred.
She paused in the doorway. Alison had no liking for the Yorkist Queen; she had agreed to attend her only to accommodate her husband’s friend and northern neighbor, the Earl of Warwick. But she acknowledged now that they presented a fetching tableau, the mother with baby nestled at her breast and her oldest daughter, a pretty precocious child not yet five, perched on the foot of the bed, watching with extreme interest as the infant suckled.
How are the mighty fallen, Alison thought, with malicious satisfaction. The woman who’d once eaten only from plate of gold now maintained herself and her children on half a beef and two muttons delivered to her every week by a butcher with Yorkist sympathies, and the baskets sent as a charity by the Duchess of York.
Alison was not moved by Elizabeth’s plight. It was her opinion that Elizabeth should consider herself thankful that Warwick was a man of honor who scorned to revenge himself upon a woman. Had he not personally requested that she attend Elizabeth during her lying-in? No, Alison felt Warwick had accorded Elizabeth mercies she did not deserve and would never have returned had their positions been reversed.
All in all, Alison and her husband thought their friend had been most magnanimous in the month that he’d exercised power. He’d claimed no blood debts, sought no settlements of old scores. Of course, he’d wasted no time restoring the chancellorship to his brother, the Archbishop of York, but he’d pardoned the man who’d held the chancellorship until Edward’s fall, Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Much to Alison’s wonderment, Warwick had even agreed to pardon one of Elizabeth’s younger brothers. And when parliament was to meet on November twenty-sixth, Alison and her husband knew that Warwick intended to seek only two Bills of Attainder, for Edward of York and his brother, Richard of Gloucester.
Elizabeth looked up as she entered, and Alison thought a woman in childbed had no right to look as beautiful as did this woman; it was uncanny, unnatural. Those who spoke of Elizabeth’s “gilt” hair did not exaggerate. It was luxuriant, lustrous, purest silver-blonde in color, and even now, hanging in disarray about her breasts and shoulders, made one wish to touch it, to see if it were really as soft, as silken as it seemed. Her skin was perfect enough to bear the most critical examination; Alison, not without envy, doubted whether Elizabeth had ever had to cope with the blemishes and freckles that were the lot of her less fortunate sisters. She had a full mouth, sullenly sensual in repose, and the high wide brow so prized by minstrels and poets. Only in eye-color did she fail to satisfy the fashionable standards of their day; china-blue was the most preferred of hues, and Elizabeth’s heavy-lidded eyes were cat-green.
Alison knew Elizabeth was in her early thirties, well past a woman’s prime, yet she had a body any man would desire, any woman would envy; and no one who saw those full firm breasts would ever have thought she’d been brought to bed of six children. Not for the first time, it occurred to Alison that there might be truth to those tales which held Elizabeth to be one who practiced the black arts.
Alison closed the door softly behind her, moved toward the bed. Elizabeth watched in silence; she never bothered to make polite conversation, never addressed Alison at all unless she had some need she wanted met.
Alison had not been witness to Elizabeth’s initial response to the devastating news of Doncaster. Rumor had it that she’d at first refused to believe it, stubbornly rejected all evidence brought before her, and continued to do so until she was confronted with a hastily scribbled warning in her husband’s own hand. It was said that she’d then given in to hysterics, an emotional outburst so violent that she’d raised fears for the well-being of the child she carried. Her recovery had been rapid enough, however, for her to have thought to take with her into sanctuary all her jewelry and much of her wardrobe.
It had been a fortnight now since Alison had come into the sanctuary, and she sought in vain for cracks in the aloof composure that sealed off from the world whatever pain or fears tormented Elizabeth’s private hours. Alison had to admit that the other woman was bearing up remarkably well under the circumstances. Much as it vexed her pride, Alison knew that, were she in Elizabeth’s predicament, she’d not have done half as well as this woman she liked so little.
“How does he?” she made herself ask politely. What a pity this child must be a boy! How much simpler it would have been had she given birth to yet another daughter.
“He sleeps now.” Elizabeth glanced down at the small head pillowed on her breast. The corners of her mouth curved upward, as if in secret satisfaction of a pleasure too sweet to share.
“Tell me, Lady Scrope, do you not think it an omen that my son should be born here…in the Jerusalem Chamber?”
Seeing Alison’s lack of comprehension, she smiled. “It was in this very chamber, was it not, that the first of the Lancastrian Kings did die? Do you not find the contrast striking, a Lancastrian death and a Yorkist birth?”
Alison had no intention of being trapped in a pointless political discussion. “I know nothing of omens, Madame,” she said brusquely. “Nurse Cobb will be back directly she has supped. May I do anything for you?”
“As it happens, you can. I have asked Abbot Thomas to stand as godfather.” Elizabeth was stroking the cheek of the sleeping child, all the while watching Alison. “Will you act as godmother to my son, Lady Scrope?”
Alison was too surprised to hide it. She knew Elizabeth was well aware of her animosity. She looked from Elizabeth to the small wrinkled bundle Elizabeth held, swathed in folds of white linen. He had a surprisingly thick thatch of hair, but so light in color that at first glance he looked bald. He was awake and kneading with tiny pink fingers the soft warm flesh he found within his grasp.
“Yes…yes, I will,” Alison said at last, and Elizabeth inclined her head, as if there were nothing extraordinary in either the offer or the acceptance.
“Why cannot I be godmother?” Bess demanded, and pouted when Elizabeth said,
“You’re too young, sweet.”
Alison reached down to fondle the child’s flaxen hair. She’d grown fond of Bess, for all that she talked incessantly of her father. She’d been his pet, and in this strange cramped world she now occupied, it was his absence she found hardest to accept or understand.
Now she leaned closer to peer at her brother, and then asked, with the candor peculiar to very young children, “Will Papa still love me now he has a son?”
Alison was touched, but Elizabeth said composedly, “Yes, Bess. You are his firstborn and that is special in itself.”
“What will we name him, Mama?”
Elizabeth looked from her son to Alison.
“He shall be christened Edward…Prince Edward of England. And in time, Bess, he shall be titled as Prince of Wales, as be fitting the heir to England’s crown.”
“That is a title which belongs, by rights, to the son of His Grace, King Henry,” Alison said coolly.
But in a darkened corner of her mind, she cried out in protest that she, Lady Scrope of Bolton Castle, should have to proclaim a Frenchwoman’s bastard son as England’s King-to-be; that for Warwick, whom they did love, she and her John must accept Lancaster, whom they did not.
“The son of the French whore? He’s no son to Harry and all do know it. But even if the Lord God Almighty were to declare him a true-born son of Lancaster, it matters little.”
Elizabeth raised the squirming child, held him up as he began to wail. “Here is the heir of England…my son.”
“You take considerable risk in speaking so,” Alison said slowly, as she sought to keep her temper in check. “The Earl of Warwick will not take punitive measures against you for yo
ur rash talk. But I would caution you, Madame. When Marguerite d’Anjou is once more in England, she’ll brook no such claims as you make now. Such defiance will cost you dear.”
Elizabeth guided the whimpering child’s mouth to her breast. “You do know my husband, Lady Scrope. Do you truly think he will be content to keep to Burgundy while Warwick rules England? My husband?”
She laughed, and Alison decided that if her amusement was not genuine, she was a gifted actress.
“And when Edward is once more in England, he’ll brook no such claims as you make now,” Elizabeth echoed mockingly, and Alison flushed.
It was only with a conscious effort that she reminded herself this woman had given birth but hours before; reminded herself, too, of the innocent presence of Edward’s daughter, rapt at mention of her father’s name.
“I think this does serve for naught,” she said, as steadily as her anger would allow.
Elizabeth leaned back against the pillow. “Prince Edward of England,” she said recklessly, and smiled. “And you may tell Warwick what I said…word for word.”
19
Amboise, France
December 1470
Anne Neville and Prince Edward of Lancaster were distant cousins, as his great-grandfather, Henry IV, and her great-grandmother, Joan Beaufort, were brother and sister. It was necessary, therefore, to secure a papal dispensation before they could wed. An understanding was reached between Warwick and his friend, Louis of France. As Warwick sailed for England, the French King exercised his renowned powers of persuasion upon a merchant of Tours, who prudently agreed to advance the gold needed for an appeal to the Holy See.
On July 25, the betrothal of the Houses of Lancaster and Neville had been solemnized in the Cathedral of Angers, sworn on the blessed Cross of St Laud d’Angers. Since then, the Earl’s wife and daughters had resided in the household of Marguerite d’Anjou at Amboise, in central France.
At Amboise, they’d learned of Warwick’s success in winning over his disgruntled unhappy brother; learned of John’s volte-face, which had driven their cousins of York into exile; learned, too, of Warwick’s triumphal entry into London. And at Amboise, word had reached them that a dispensation for the wedding had been secured from the Patriarch of Jerusalem. On this Thursday, the thirteenth of December, the Grand Vicar of Bayeux was to wed the seventeen-year-old Lancastrian Prince to the younger daughter of the Earl of Warwick.
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