AT THE COCK’S CROW, AS DAY BROKE OVER LONDON and church bells ran for Prime, my mother burst into my chamber to inspect the bloody sheets.
“You have made our fortune, Elizabeth!” she exulted. “Now you will be queen, and Henry will pay the ransom for your brother Dorset’s release from France, as he promised me.”
I was overcome with a deep revulsion for her. As haughtily as I could manage, I requested a hot bath. Maybe soap and water would wash away the smell of Tudor and cleanse me of this feeling of filth.
My mother turned as she reached the door, and threw me a long look. “Queen already, are you?” She left, laughing loudly.
I stayed in the water all day.
It seemed that all in the land were anxiously awaiting the moment when Tudor would fulfill his promise and wed me, because as Yule approached, my mother came to me.
“There is news—great news!” she cried, enraptured. “Parliament presented the king a petition asking him to take you to wife and Tudor agreed to comply!”
Cecily swished her skirts around from the looking glass where she had been admiring her image. “Now we shall live at court and go to feasts and disguisings and pageants!”
“What is the matter with you, Elizabeth?” my mother asked, noting my dour expression.
“She’s going to a funeral!” Cecily laughed.
“More like a birth,” I replied, rising from my seat at the window.
My mother approached me, then took my arm and swung me to face her.
“You’re with child?” she breathed, her eyes alight with exultation.
“ ’Tis too soon to know for sure.”
Mother wasted no time. She fled the room, and I realized she was going to Margaret Beaufort. She returned but an hour later.
“Lady Beaufort agrees that the marriage must take place immediately—there is no time to lose!”
“And the dispensation?” I asked absently. “Tudor and I are both descended from John of Gaunt and Katherine de Roet, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Lady Beaufort declares you will need to wed without one. A verbal assurance from the pope shall suffice until the written dispensation arrives. The wedding date is set for the eighteenth of January.”
To Mother’s great joy, Dorset arrived back in England in time for Christmas Day, and wedding plans rushed ahead. Everyone was jubilant except me. Lady Margaret Beaufort and Mother were in deep consultation, heads together as they planned my wedding.
The eighteenth day of January, 1486, dawned sunny and cold, the brightness lit with icy light. After I’d been bathed and my hair had been washed, Lady Beaufort arrived to give eagle-eyed scrutiny and critical supervision to my final preparations. Now that her son was king, she had abandoned the austere black she had previously worn for colorful silks that blazed with gems. The red dress she had donned this morning was trimmed with sable, and her dark hair was hidden by a jeweled, embroidered headdress. She had mapped out minute instructions for the wedding ceremonies, even as to the yardage of material that nobles could use in their apparel, so it would not exceed hers.
“How many strokes for the hair?” she demanded in her shrill voice, enunciating every syllable with precision.
“One hundred fifty,” the clerk read, consulting her instructions.
She started the counting,“One . . . two . . . three . . . ,” and the maidservants went to work. I stood still as a wax statue as they brushed.
“How many drops?” demanded Lady Beaufort of her clerk, when I was to be anointed with the fragrance of lavender.
“Fourteen,” he replied.
“One. Two. Three,” she began.
“The hair loose around her in token of virginity,” advised Lady Beaufort.
I allowed myself a faint smile at this.
“Where is the gold netting? Six ounces is what is needed. And the pearls? Fifty, I believe.”
The counting began anew.
As I stood quietly before them, my heart was cold. I had two choices: to accept my fate, or to fight it every step of the way. This was my destiny. I had known it from babyhood, and I had accepted it—until I met Thomas. And Richard.
I accepted it now for the sake of those I loved, who depended on me. And because God had willed it so.
By the time we were commanded to go downstairs, I found myself counting the number of tower steps. One, two, three—
In the snowy courtyard, Henry Tudor, clad in green brocade and cloth of gold and wearing an ermine mantle, stood by the litter that would take us to the abbey. As a wedding gift, he had given me Johnnie of Gloucester’s freedom and an allowance for Johnnie to live on, though, for reasons of state, he had refused to do the same for Edward of Warwick. He is not a bad person, I thought.
He inclined his head; I bobbed a curtsy. As I approached the carriage, my eye went to the four milky horses decorated with blankets of red and white roses, symbols of York and Lancaster. It occurred to me then that Henry was as much a pawn in this as I. Sympathy softened my heart. We climbed into the litter and drove through the gates of Westminster and into what seemed a sea of white roses.
A thunderous roar of excitement erupted from a thousand throats, for huge crowds had turned out to greet us. The streets, doorways, and balconies were mobbed with people waving the White Rose of York, fashioned of cloth and of paper. Boys raised their roses high on poles, maidens wore them in garlands, women pinned them to their hair and men to their collars. Young lads perched on snowy rooftops and stood on walls to get a better look at us. The flowers they flung into the air were born by the wind and fluttered down like butterflies, a summer caress over a winter scene. Here and there I spotted both the red and the white rose intertwined as a symbol of peace, celebrating the lines of York and Lancaster that were, after thirty years of war, finally united together.
This was the first time the Londoners had seen me since the death of my father. They danced around the bonfires they built in the streets and broke open barrels of beer, toasting me wildly as I passed. “Elizabeth, Elizabeth!” they called, running after me. “Daughter of the king!” Their emotion bathed me in a warmth that thawed the ice in my veins. On impulse, I gathered in my arms the white silk roses that were heaped into my litter and cast them to my well-wishers. These people were good people; they were my people; and their love would sustain me through all that lay ahead. Along with the white roses and the kisses I threw, I made them a promise in my heart: Never will I betray you. Always will I try to help you. May God bless you, each and every one of you, my beloved people.
I thought of Henry Tudor sitting stiffly beside me. Surely in his twenty-nine years he must have loved someone once, as I had loved. Was he thinking of her now? Was there an ache in his heart that echoed my own? I turned my head and smiled at him, but he didn’t look at me. Neither for his entry into London after Bosworth, nor for his coronation, had the cheers been more than civil. He resents the love they bear me for my father’s sake. I settled back into my seat. Our marriage was born of necessity, and nothing could change that, for either of us.
When we reached the confines of the abbey, we climbed out of the carriage, and the crowd exploded with cheering. Elizabeth! Elizabeth! they cried. Tudor took my hand, but his touch was frosty.
Inside the abbey, surrounded by Lancastrians and away from the embrace of the people, the warmth that had come to me slowly slipped away. Throughout the wedding ceremony, my eyes remained fixed on Archbishop Bourchier’s bejeweled hands. I occasionally forced a smile to my lips, but it was a smile that could not reach my eyes, for my heart had frozen over again. Dimly, I heard the sound of muffled sobbing; it came from Margaret Beaufort, overcome with joy.
The banqueting that followed the wedding ceremony was subdued, though the Great Hall glittered with music and color. It had been a long time since I’d dined there, and nothing was as I remembered. Court seemed lit with a false light now. The jugglers, the animal tamers, the troubadours who sang of love all seemed on edge, and the edginess was eve
rywhere, even in the laughter.
Was it always this way? I wondered. Or have I changed? Could this really be what my mother had dedicated her life to—this vacuous ceremony, these fleeting, hollow pleasures? This mock pageantry where people danced, and bowed, and grinned at one another like gem-studded skeletons?
I remembered the old prophecy that had so troubled my father, and I saw his face again, and heard his voice:“It says, my dear child, that no son of mine shall be crowned king, but that you shall be queen and wear the crown in their stead.”
O Papa, Papa, I thought. Forgive me!
THROUGH JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, HENRY TUDOR shuffled his court from Westminster to Sheen, from Greenwich to the Tower. As I crossed the turf to this last, I glanced up at the Beauchamp Tower where Edward was imprisoned. Maybe he sees me, I thought. I raised my hand to my lips and stealthily blew a kiss in his direction. I had to be most cautious, for spies were everywhere. Well had Tudor learned the value of them, for he owed his life to a warning of the agreement made between Richard and Brittany. Fleeing to France, he had escaped his pursuers with only minutes to spare. Since then, both mother and son had made it their business to employ an army of spies, who reported back to them on everything that was being said and done in every corner of the land. One morning, approaching Henry Tudor’s privy chamber where I had been summoned, I overheard his mother tell Henry,“Trust no one, my son. A trusting king is easy to bring down.” I pulled up short, an ache in my heart. Richard had been a trusting king.
No doubt these spies were armed with Margaret Beaufort’s ordinances on what to look for in the households of those they surveilled. One, two, three—
Sometimes at night, while Henry claimed his marital rights, I counted to myself the number of his thrusts: One, two, three—
Soon reports came to us of unrest in the north that was teetering dangerously close to rebellion. This region, still smarting from Richard’s defeat, still bearing Yorkist sentiments, was angry that an upstart of bastard descent sat on the throne of England. One gusty March morning, leaving me in his mother’s care, Henry Tudor departed on a progress. I stood on the mounting block outside to give him the stirrup cup, for he wished the people to witness a display of affection between us. Not long afterward, a missive arrived for us, which Margaret Beaufort read to me.
York, the city that had loved Richard best, had presented him with the most elaborate of all the pageants. The city was decorated with tapestries, and from the galleries and windows were tossed down great quantities of tiny cakes stamped with red and white crosses, in rejoicing of his coming. They had also asked for favor, because they had not fought for Richard, and I was reminded of the betrayal of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who had not informed the city of Tudor’s landing. The men of York had been on the road to Bosworth when news reached them of Richard’s defeat.
On the heels of this report arrived another. Margaret Beaufort stood before me, reading aloud in her shrill voice. On the Feast of St. George, the twenty-third day of April, as he went around his masses, prayers, and banquets, Henry narrowly avoided being kidnapped by Francis Lovell, Humphrey Stafford, and his brother Thomas—
I gasped, then reddened, fearing I’d given myself away. But Margaret Beaufort must have thought my concern was for her son. She paused before she took up the missive again, and there was a tremor in her voice as she read.
“They had gathered an army,” Henry Tudor wrote, “but I sent my Uncle Jasper, that seasoned warrior, to quell their rebellion. He offered every man who would desert Lovell’s cause a royal pardon, and so many did that Lovell and the Staffords were forced to flee. Lovell got away and is in Burgundy with Richard’s sister, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy. The Stafford brothers took refuge in sanctuary. After I had a few words with the abbot, my men were permitted to go inside and seize them. They are condemned to hang at Tyburn and—”
My breath froze. Margaret Beaufort kept reading, but I no longer heard her words.
Tyburn.
Blessed Virgin—Almighty God—no, not Tyburn! Men were gutted alive at Tyburn—
O Thomas!
I did not sleep until Henry’s return. I could not speak to him during the day, for his mother’s presence shadowed us everywhere. Now that I was with child I feared he would not come to my bedchamber, and I was overjoyed when he did. Taking his arm, I led him to the fire, for the night was cold. I sat him down in a velvet chair and presented him with wine and his favorite dish of snails, prepared in the French manner, with garlic. When he had eaten, he sat back, well contented. Then I rose and knelt before him.
“What’s this?” Henry Tudor asked with surprise.
“Sire, I come to you a supplicant, requesting favor.”
“What is it you wish?” he said, his voice alert, instantly suspicious.
“ ’Tis a most serious request that involves life and death.”
“Speak then, queen,” he demanded coldly.
I lifted my head and looked at him. “I request the life of Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother Sir Thomas Stafford.”
Henry Tudor leapt to his feet. “Never!” he shouted, a look of such wrath on his face that I shrank back. “Do you have any idea how close they came to killing me? A hair—that’s how close! But for the grace of God, I would not have lived to return. And you ask for their lives?” He threw me a look of disgust.
“Sire, Sir Thomas Stafford was my guard in sanctuary. He was kind to . . . us.” I dared not take nay for an answer, and I raised my moist eyes to his face. “My lord, I thank God for your safety, for I bear your child in my womb, but I must ask for their lives, for honor demands it of me.” I saw him soften, and I rushed on. “Anyone can take a life, but only the great can give it. It would show you as merciful, my king. It would endear you to your people. I plead for mercy for Thomas, and for Humphrey.”
I bowed my head, and waited. O hear me, Almighty God! Help me! Help Thomas—
He spoke then, and his voice was deliberate, cold. “One of them must die. You may choose.”
THE NEWS OF HUMPHREY’S AWFUL DEATH STRUCK me hard. Giving out that I was unwell, I took to my bed, clutching Thomas’s brooch. Mulling my failure to save both brothers, I came to see that Henry’s nature was streaked with a savage vengefulness. He’d been terrified when Richard had nearly killed him, and since he was unable to exact revenge on the living man, he had taken his fury out on Richard’s corpse by mutilating his body, throwing a felon’s halter around his neck, and dumping it before Grey Friars for a pauper’s burial.
Whenever I heard the door latch click, I turned over and pretended to be asleep. Naturally it was always Margaret Beaufort. Truly, the woman was insufferable. She never left my side, and she tormented me continually with questions about why I had not yet used the privy, insisting that I go according to her appointed schedule. I even dreamt she followed me there and stood over me counting: One wipe, two wipes, three wipes . . .
She forced me to eat and drink and counted the number of times I chewed. “For the babe’s sake,” she explained. “We don’t want you to choke yourself, or swallow something large that might injure him.”
To her, and her son, power was the breath of life itself. She saw to it that I was confined mercilessly. I had to request permission to go to the chapel or the library, and she escorted me there. If she gave me permission to walk in a corner of the garden, she sat on a nearby bench, watching like a vulture. I understood the reason. Though I wasn’t crowned, in the eyes of the people Henry Tudor’s claim rested on my right as the king’s daughter, and now the king’s daughter was about to deliver him a dynasty. With every look Henry Tudor and his mother cast my way, fear stood in their eyes—fear that something might happen to me before I delivered the child; fear that I might be rescued from their clutches. The Beaufort woman kept me in total seclusion. No one could see me unless she gave permission, nor could I see anyone without her approval. None of my missives were delivered, just as none were given to me. I longed for word fr
om my grandmother Cecily, or even from Queen Anne’s mother, the Countess of Warwick. But contact with my Yorkist past was forbidden to me. Yet I had learned a strange truth. The tears Margaret Beaufort wept when overcome with joy stemmed as much from her dread of a future reversal of fortune. Though I might be her captive, she herself was enslaved by fear.
I spent much of my time in prayer, begging God for strength to bear what I must, and I read the book I had taken from Richard’s library, Boethius’s De Consolatione. Meanwhile, my sister Cecily was always angry and complaining. “What do you wish me to do?” I asked her.
“I want you to get my marriage to Scrope annulled. I don’t want to go back to miserable Yorkshire. I want to stay here at court where there’s dancing and pleasure. I hate it up north!”
“I can give you a gown, Cecily, but more I can’t do. Do you not see how powerless I am?”
“Welladay, if you can’t, I know who can!” she cried, swiveling on her heel and leaving me for Margaret Beaufort’s side. She gave the crabby woman a kiss on the cheek and murmured to her. I saw the stern features relent beneath her charm. Cecily threw me a sly smile, and I thought how much she resembled my mother, and how strange it was that the Beaufort woman should like her so well for it.
From then on Cecily was always at Margaret Beaufort’s side, laughing and being merry. They walked together arm in arm, and I thought what odd allies they made. Not surprisingly, Cecily got her wish, and her marriage to Scrope was annulled on some pretext. Then she married Margaret Beaufort’s half-brother, John,Viscount Welles. Certainly he was rich enough, and he had a title, but so did many men half his age. I couldn’t fathom why Cecily had chosen to wed him.
In these days, my mother was my most welcome visitor.
“You’re smiling broadly, Mother. Come sit by me, and tell me what good thing has happened.” Smoothing my skirts closer, I made room for her on the garden bench while Margaret Beaufort busied herself with chastising the gardener for missing a patch of weeds.
The King's Daughter (Rose of York) Page 18
