The King's Daughter (Rose of York)

by Worth, Sandra

  My lips curled at the thought of Henry’s contrived lineage. Now he suddenly went all the way back to Aeneas, the founder of Rome, which with the coming of Caesar was ruled by terror and tyrants. Aye, Henry knew his history, and he would not repeat the same mistake that had brought down his predecessor. He would be Caesar.

  I looked at the babe sleeping in my arms, his head on my shoulder, his arms outstretched, his tiny fingers splayed. A rush of warmth dissolved my bitterness. I set him down in his cot. Here lay England’s future king, another Arthur who would shape a golden age of peace and justice, as Richard had wished to do.

  All shall be put right in the end, I thought. This little treasure was my great gift to England. I arranged his blanket around him with a gentle touch.

  Sleep, tiny King Arthur; sleep and grow strong, my darling one.

  CHRISTMAS AT COURT WAS GALA, AND HENRY SPARED no expense on it. Recognizing the importance of royal magnificence and display, he entertained more than six hundred people at his banquets, which offered as many as sixty dishes of confections in addition to the other courses of pheasants and swans, jellied eels, and pies of turtledoves and larks. We dressed in purple velvets and cloths of gold tissue furred with ermines and sables and adorned ourselves with jewels, and golden crowns, and collars that dazzled in torchlight.

  Powdered with a light snowfall, 1487 was ushered in with much revelry. Outside, great bonfires lit the streets and people skated on the frozen Thames. Inside the castle, feasting and religious services filled the hours from dawn to dusk with spectacle and pageants. Surrounded by Henry’s attendants clad in his colors of green and white, and mine in wine and blue, our minstrels played while Henry and I distributed to our courtiers and servants bountiful gifts of money, silver and gold goblets, cups, dishes, capes, and cloaks as if we had not a care in the world. The gifts, like the celebrations, grew more lavish with the passing of each of the twelve days of Christmas until they reached their finale in the Feast of the Epiphany on Twelfth Night, the most glorious celebration of all. Then Henry presented his Yuletide gift to me.

  “My queen,” said Patch the Dwarf with a courtly bow that jingled all his bells, “I am your fool, and you may rest assured that never was there such a fool as I in all the world.”

  I laughed heartily.

  Thus drew to an end the blessed year of Arthur’s birth. But nothing is ever as it seems, and no one knew that our joyous displays hid the shadow of uncertainty. Rumors of rebellion clouded the air, and behind the lavish extravagances I darned the hems of my garments while Henry pored over his accounts each night, inspecting and signing his treasurer’s account books. Avoiding needless spending, he doled out to me an allowance so niggardly it never failed to prove short of my needs, no matter how I cut costs. On occasion, I was forced to borrow from my ladies-in-waiting and to repay them when I received my next portion from Henry, so that I was always in arrears. But I knew it was hopeless to ask for more money. Henry was saving for a battle he did not intend to lose.

  Richard’s friend Francis Lovell and my aunt, Margaret of York, fanned the discontent of the people and fueled rumors through the land. Why had Henry Tudor not crowned his queen? Why was young Warwick held a prisoner in the Tower? Was Henry plotting the death of the child? With the birth of my Arthur, I had proved fruitful, and they knew that Henry was intent on establishing a dynasty, for he had resumed his visits to my bedchamber as soon as I had been churched, never missing a night unless I was unwell. Henry’s enemies realized that with his relentlessness, and my fruitfulness, there would be no end to the number of Tudors to fight them for the crown, and they had decided to strike now, before Henry became too entrenched on the throne.

  But they had shrewd, cunning, unconscionable Morton to contend with. Henry had raised him to be Archbishop of Canterbury on old Bourchier’s death the previous year and appointed him Lord Chancellor. No man had done more to bring down York, and now Morton set his devious mind to securing Henry’s throne. I had come to know him well, and time had confirmed my perception. Here, behind this rotund belly tied with a red sash, dwelled all seven deadly sins. Whenever my eye rested on his brutal, fleshy face, I wondered if he had murdered my brothers and poisoned Richard’s son, all in the cause of Lancaster.

  Because of the threat of rebellion, Henry and his mother increased their watch on me. The Beaufort woman never left my side and dominated me in small ways and large, ordering me about and telling me when to sleep and when to rise, and demanding we dress alike for state occasions.

  “The olive shade does not suit me. I shall take the emerald silk,” I told the Master of the Wardrobe as I inspected fabrics for a new gown. I could scarce call him my Master of the Wardrobe, for like everyone else around me, he had been appointed by Margaret Beaufort.

  “But olive is my color,” Margaret Beaufort called out from across the chamber, where she was discussing a new book with the printer, William Caxton, whom she had taken under her patronage. “Since your dress is a copy of mine, you must wear olive, Elizabeth.”

  I almost snickered aloud. Your dress is a copy of mine—when I was queen, and she wished to parade as one! Surely, Heaven had laughed as it handed me such a mother-in-law. Even when she was not at my elbow, she remained within earshot. I turned away so she would not see the hatred that must surely light my eyes. My mother, I knew, would have challenged her, for she thrived on confrontation. But I hated argument and comforted myself with the solace God had granted me—my little Arthur. I glanced over at my mother-in-law chastising a nursemaid until the young girl burst into tears. Let her fuss about the nursery, I told my babe, rocking him in my arms; one day you shall be king, and set things right.

  Serenity came only in those rare and treasured moments when I was alone in Arthur’s company, for whenever my mother visited, she fought with Margaret Beaufort, or harangued me.

  “How can you just sit there and take their abuse?” she demanded one afternoon when Margaret Beaufort left the room. She closed the door against the ladies-in-waiting milling in the antechamber. “These Tudors are nobodies—their claim to the throne is too delicate to raise! Without you, they’re usurpers, and all the land knows it. You are the old blood. You give them legitimacy—”

  Repairing the lining of my skirt, I smiled as I listened. The same charge had been leveled against her when she’d wed my father, but, thanks to her determination, all those of ancient lineage who’d spoken out against her were dead.

  I drifted out of my thoughts, knotted the thread, and broke it with my teeth.

  “—you are the true queen,” she was saying, “yet you remain uncrowned. You must demand to be crowned! I don’t understand why you are content to be treated in this humiliating manner.”

  “I have no power to demand anything, Mother.”

  “Then find it,” she breathed in my ear.

  “I don’t know how,” I said absently, threading a needle.

  She looked at me with disgust. “I told you how! You get it by charming Henry every way you can. You sing like an angel, surely even you know that? That helps. And you have great beauty. I gave you that. Use it to your advantage—in bed.”

  I thought of Henry’s breath in my face, vile from a mouthful of decaying teeth, his saliva and runny nose dribbling down my cheek as he moved over me, winded with passion. I held my breath and turned my face away.

  “I cannot, Mother.”

  “What do you mean, you cannot? You do it to get what you want—what you need!”

  “Henry is not like Father. It takes all my will just to submit. ’Tis all I can bear.”

  “Submit! ’Tis all you understand.’

  “Would that you might have understood years ago, Mother. Maybe it would be a different world now. You have given us the misery we must abide.”

  Her eyes lit with hatred. “You’re such a fool! So damned humble, without pride. All you know how to do is pray!”

  “Mother, I have chosen my motto. Do you care to know what it is? Humble and Re
verent. Humble, because you’re arrogant. Reverent, because you’re not.” I rose to my feet, unable to keep spite from my tone. At this moment I believed I loathed my mother as much as she despised me. “And see what your arrogance has wrought for us? What pass your stupidity has brought us to? You never could foresee the consequences of your actions or learn from your mistakes. Naturally, for that takes intelligence. But I’ve learned from your mistakes, and I am loved, while you are hated.”

  “And what good does it do you being loved?” my mother sneered. “Let me remind you that these same people who love you today will forget you tomorrow. In the meanwhile, you’re a captive and must ask permission to go to the privy.”

  “Do you not understand, Mother?” I exclaimed, forgetting to keep my voice down. In a bare whisper, I added, “What is more stupid than handing Dickon over to Margaret Beaufort to be murdered like Richard’s son—which you almost did.”

  A gasp of horror escaped her lips “How do you know they did away with Ned?”

  “He died quickly. He died after eating. He died in great pain. He died on the anniversary of Papa’s death.” I stressed every word. “It doesn’t take a seer to fathom what happened. Why do you think King Richard risked everything to go behind enemy lines and kill Henry himself?”

  “You are wrong,” she inisted. “It cannot be true. You are being a fool.”

  But her tone lacked conviction. She didn’t want to concede to me, for that meant admitting her own extreme folly in almost trusting Dickon to Margaret Beaufort. But we had mulled this same road time and again, and I was weary. She was the only one I could confide in, the only friend I had, yet we seemed to always battle like foes. I hated contention, and she loved it. I wanted her affection, and she despised me. When I was little, she never took my hand, or offered me an embrace. Yet she had doted on my two brothers. Now I was grown and we couldn’t even hold a discussion when our interests converged.

  “Mother, I pray you, let me alone. There’s no point discussing this any further. We shall never agree on anything.” I turned to leave the room.

  Then she spoke the words I would never forget, or forgive.

  “I should have let you rot by wedding that humble knight of yours!”

  I froze in my steps, and swung around. “What did you say?”

  “That knight. That nobody—Stafford, I think his name was.”

  Stunned, I retraced my steps. “How do you know about Thomas? What did you do?”

  “One word answers both questions, my dear. Letters. I had them destroyed.”

  “He wrote me? When?”

  “In the early days, when you were first received by Richard and Anne.”

  I lunged at her with a scream, my fingernails bared to draw blood. “I could have wed him then! Richard would have let me wed him!”

  My mother grabbed my wrist and bent it backward until she had me down on my knees. I felt the pain all the way up my arm to my chest where Thomas’s brooch lay pinned to my black velvet dress. Mother’s eyes glittered with triumph. Smiling coldly, she released me.

  I rose to my feet unsteadily. “I loved him, and you destroyed my one chance at happiness.”

  “Happiness? With a squire?” She stared at me and burst into derisive laughter.

  “Have you never loved?” I cried out. “Do you even know what love is?”

  She ceased her laughter. Her eyes, moist with revelry, took on a strange look and I thought I saw reflected in them the flicker of a memory: Sir John Grey, young and handsome, standing in his armor, his helmet under his arm, a breeze stirring his hair, a pained smile on his face as he gazed at her for the last time before leaving for Northampton, where he died. In that fleeting instant, I knew beyond doubt that my mother had once loved, and loved passionately, and when she had lost that love, a depth of bitterness had shriveled her heart until nothing remained but a gnarled knot of scars.

  The misty look left her eyes, and her voice came again. “Forget love. It’s here one day and gone the next. What matters is what you can grasp in your hand—power, money, riches. Take it, and hold on to it with all your strength, and it will comfort you in the cold, and the dark.”

  I reached out and touched my mother’s sleeve, tears stinging my eyes.

  THE COURT MARKED HENRY’S THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY on the twenty-eighth of January, and merriment filled the palace halls. But he continued to put off my coronation with excuses. Now it was for the threat of rebellion. Jack, Earl of Lincoln, Richard’s heir to the throne, who had accepted Henry’s pardon, escaped to Francis Lovell’s side in Burgundy in January, and word reached England that Lincoln and Lovell were preparing to invade, and claimed to have Edward, Earl of Warwick.

  I found this very strange. Edward was a captive at the Tower, so the other child was an impostor. Everyone knew that. Why would Francis and Lincoln purposely give the lie to their rebellion? Henry was deeply troubled, for to him it meant only one thing. One, or both, of my brothers still live. Because they were too young to be revealed until the rebellion succeeded, Lovell and Lincoln had the impostor child front for them. I was torn by this knowledge now that I had Arthur, and I spent much time praying for strength to accept God’s will, whatever the outcome. For their success would plunge my son’s life into jeopardy.

  “What news?” I asked when Henry came to my chamber after his birthday feast.

  “The rebels have met with success in Ireland,” he said grimly. “The boy claiming to be Edward of Warwick was crowned with a diadem borrowed from a statue of the Virgin in Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin. They hail him as King Edward VI.”

  Patch the Dwarf assumed a haughty expression and, turning himself upside down, swaggered forward on his hands. “King Edward VI—make way for King Edward VI!” he cried, his bells jingling.

  He made such a ridiculous sight that we both laughed. Then Henry took a seat. “Sing to me,” he said.

  I chose my lute and raised my voice to a sweet melody. Henry closed his eyes.

  During the troubled week that followed, I learned much from Patch, some of which I wished I had not known.

  “King Richard’s bastard son, John of Gloucester, has been taken to the Tower.” Patch threw up his little arms and grimaced to mime the pain of being tortured.

  It seemed to me that a cold blast of wind knocked the air from my lungs. Johnnie, that fine young boy, an orphan of no means, of no power—the child Richard had thought safe from danger!

  “On what charge?” I breathed.

  “Treason. He received a letter from Ireland.”

  Dear God, they took him for receiving a letter?

  My legs trembling beneath me, I lowered myself into a chair. This had to be the work of Morton and Margaret Beaufort, for Henry had some scruples, and they had none. Since the birth of my babe, I had not slept well, my sleep troubled by bad dreams. Johnnie was no threat to anyone—or so we had thought—for he was a bastard. But Henry was of illegitimate descent himself, and the old rules no longer applied. In this new world, a bastard was no threat to anyone except another bastard. And that meant no one was safe.

  A chill ran along my spine. I feared that Johnnie would never see the light of day again, for Henry could not afford to let him live. The blood of kings ran more closely in his veins than in Henry’s own. I moved to my prie-dieu. Clasping my hands together, my heart breaking, I prayed for young Johnnie.

  THE LAND WAS RIFE WITH PROPHECIES OF THE WHITE Rose blooming again and the Tudor dragon slinking away, bloody and beaten. My aunt Margaret of York was reported to have called Henry “a most iniquitous invader and tyrant.” But Henry, aided by his mother and her nefarious helpmate, Morton, devised a reply to Margaret.

  I learned it for myself when I went to see Henry on a money matter. My ladies-in-waiting had informed me that my household needed to make various sundry payments for garments sewn and materials procured, and that the merchants we owed were unable to extend me further credit, for they themselves were in desperate straits. I chose my moment. Ma
rgaret Beaufort was absent on an errand, and so I did not need to request permission and risk being denied.

  “I am going to see the king,” I told my chamberlain, the Earl of Ormond.

  “I am happy to accompany you to his chambers, my lady.”

  I did not argue. He did what he was commanded to do. Words had never come easily to me, and so we walked along in silence through the palace halls and across the garth. A strong wind blew, displacing my hood, and I was reminded of my stroll with Richard through this same garden on my nineteenth birthday, for today was my birthday, the eleventh day of February, and I had turned twenty-one. How much had changed in only two years! Tonight there would be a banquet in my honor, but I wasn’t certain if I’d have time alone with Henry to discuss my personal finances, hence this visit. My accounts were in such arrears that I was finally driven to ask him for money.

  Henry’s chamberlain greeted us at the entrance of the royal suite and bowed courteously. “His Grace is with his lady mother and Archbishop Morton in the council chamber. Shall I announce you, my queen?”

  “Pray disturb them not. I will wait in the anteroom.”

  Everyone present rose to their feet, and the room filled with the rustle of silk and clink of gold chains as they withdrew. A steward closed the door. I went to the window seat where I could hear what was said in the privy chamber.

  Morton’s voice drifted to me. “Your royal poet, Bernard Andre, made an interesting remark at the French ambassador’s banquet, sire.”