A Song of Sixpence: The Story of Elizabeth of York and Perkin Warbeck

by Arnopp, Judith

  We expect to see his attendants, perhaps the gentleman of his bedchamber come to put him to bed, but the figure that emerges from the gloom wears the sombre hues of a friar. I recognise him as the king’s confessor.

  He takes two steps into the room, stops just outside the ring of firelight. He seems to tremble. His hands are tightly clasped, his fingers digging deep into his flesh.

  “What is it?”

  Henry stands up, takes a step toward him and then stops, half turns and reaches for my hand. Slowly, I struggle to my feet. Henry’s hand is cold; his fingers dig into my flesh. We both know, without being told, what news the confessor brings.

  “Your Grace. I am afraid …” He stops; I see the fear in his eyes, the utter regret of the words he must speak. “We have had news from Ludlow.” He pauses, clears his throat. “It seems that after a lengthy battle, your son, the Prince of Wales …”

  “No.” Henry slumps into a chair, his head to his hand, defeated before the words are out.

  “… has departed to God.”

  The friar looks at me helplessly, bows his head and begins to pray, mumbling about God sending us good things so that we may endure the bad.

  My mind is screaming: when in all my life has God ever sent me one good thing, and allowed me to keep it?

  I cannot speak. I cannot move. I am rooted to the spot; my knees tremble, my head is reeling, my stomach curdling. Madness beckons.

  And then, the king’s mother is there. She is in her nightgown, her hair in a long thin braid. She appears suddenly old, her eyes are red, her face as wrinkled as a dried up grape.

  “Send for the queen’s women,” she commands as she takes me by the arm and gently leads me to a chair. She pushes me into the seat. Slowly, I look at her and wonder who it is that is crying such heartbroken tears. I turn my head and see it is the king.

  Henry’s head is buried in his folded arms, his back is heaving. He is crying as loudly and as angrily as a thwarted child, harsh, anguished sobs that are breaking my heart. Lady Margaret abandons me and moves to his side, runs her old woman’s fingers across his back.

  “Hush, my love,” she whispers. “Hush, my son. Tears will not help.”

  “Nothing will help,” I say, and we exchange hollow glances, my eyes locked in hers. Tears are tracking down the grooves of her furrowed face. I never thought to see the king’s mother cry.

  They are all weeping. The father confessor, the king, the king’s mother, my women, who come racing through the door to bear me off to bed. Everyone is shedding tears.

  But my own eyes are dry. My head is clear, my mind as sharply honed as a bloodied knife. I can see the bleakness of my future, the futility of my past. My heart is quite broken but I am too wounded for tears.

  I want to sleep. I want to bury myself away, close myself off from the world and curl myself into a ball and give in to the cloying misery. But I can’t. I am queen of England. Henry though, forgets he is king. For the first time in seventeen years, he ignores his status and collapses into an orgy of grief. I am alone in my apartments when the king’s mother comes to me. She still bears visible signs of sorrow, she is swathed in black, the only relief to the darkness of her figure is her parchment white face.

  “Elizabeth.” Her voice is cracked. She sinks into my chair without permission and, resting her elbow on the arm, rests her head in her hand. “You must go to him. He will not respond, even to me. He needs to see that your hurt equals his and that Arthur is not his loss alone.”

  She has healed enough to speak his name. I cannot bear to even think it. I place a hand on her shoulder and walk from the room. In a sort of trance I glide along the passages, servants and courtiers falling to their knees at my approach. The whole palace wears an eerie air of sorrow; it is as if we are all enchanted. There is no noise, no music, no laughter, just an awful strained, painful silence.

  But, as I approach the king’s chamber, I hear one sound; the rasping, heart-wrenching sound of a defeated man.

  I open the door.

  Henry, still in his night clothes, is alone. He sits at the table, his plush velvet gown open, revealing sumptuous night-rail. He has pulled off his cap and thrown it to the floor and his thinning hair is standing up like a crown. He does not look up when I enter.

  “Henry,” I say, but still he continues to weep. “We should comfort one another, Henry. He was my son, too.”

  When he finally looks up his eyes are red, his face as white as his linen.

  “He was more than a son,” he says, with almost a snarl. “He was my prince. The royal flag; King Arthur come again; the proof of God’s favour upon us and now … now, there is nothing.”

  “There is Harry. He will be king now. Think of it, Henry the Eighth — it has a good sound to it.”

  My voice does not sound as convincing as my words.

  “He was always your favourite.”

  “Henry! That is an awful thing to say, to suggest that I …”

  He waves his hand to silence me but I am done with his self-pity. “I loved Arthur just as well as the others. He was my first born, my salvation! If I have not been as close to him as the others it was because you sent him away. It was more important to you and your mother that he was raised a prince … but he was my baby, my little boy, and you sent him away. If he hadn’t been in Ludlow maybe …”

  I stop there. I will not follow the path of recrimination, of blame. The breath leaves my body; quite suddenly I can fight no more. “Henry, share this with me. We have lost our son; we should not fight, not now. We need to hold each other up. Henry … I am broken …”

  I am on my knees, folded up, my arms crossed around my middle, where the pain seems to be seated. It is not my heart that is aching, it is my gut; the womb that nurtured him is mourning, screaming for him. I groan aloud. I cannot breathe. I cannot fill my lungs. In the periphery of my vision, bright lights and colours begin to conglomerate. I rock back and forth, a dirge of longing that begins somewhere in the back of my throat.

  And then I feel a hand on my hair. I raise my head, turn into my husband’s arms.

  “Why does God punish me so?” Henry whispers. “What have I done?”

  Pushing away a sudden vision of my brother, and my cousin Warwick, I grip the back of his gown and the plush red velvet is soft beneath my fingers. The bones of his shoulder dig into my cheek and my legs are cramped, but I do not move. As we rock back and forth on the floor before the king’s hearth, I recall that this is the very spot were Arthur was conceived.

  “I can give you another son, Henry. You still have an heir and I will bring forth another … if you will let me.”

  *

  I am ailing. The court is swathed in black damask; each lady has a handkerchief to her eye and every gentleman a sorrowful demeanour. Grief is like a tightening band around my chest. I go through the motions of being queen. I speak, I walk, I eat, yet all is undertaken with a terrible weariness, a reluctance to go on.

  Even little Harry is sad. When I see him, after the formalities of greeting and offering condolence, he snuggles up for a cuddle. I rest my chin on his head and stare into the flickering fire.

  “So I will be king then, Mother,” he says after a long period of uncharacteristic silence.

  “Yes. Perhaps, if Caterina is not yet with child, one day, you will. You must work harder now at your lessons just in case.”

  He frowns. “I would rather continue to be Duke of York. It is hard to be a king, I think. It makes you frown.”

  “Frown?” For the first time since the news came I find a small bubble of amusement fermenting in my belly. I should have come to see Harry sooner.

  “Well, Father frowns and always has some worry or another. I think I would prefer to be a prince, or perhaps just a knight. I want to learn to joust and be a champion of the field.”

  His round red face is earnest, his enthusiasm for his sport belying the mark of dried tears on his cheeks. I ruffle his hair.

  “You can b
e a champion jousting king then, my love.”

  “Can I? Is that allowed? Father doesn’t joust.”

  “Father doesn’t care for it. My father jousted in his younger day, when he wasn’t waging war.”

  “Did he? Tell me about it.”

  He settles back and I begin to speak of my father, of long past days before I was even born. Stories he told me of his glorious youth. Harry listens with shining eyes, his arms clasped around his knees, his red hair glistening in the firelight.

  The one good thing to come from Arthur’s death is that Harry will not now be sent away. Last year Henry set plans in motion for Harry to take up his own household at Codnore Castle in Derbyshire; a long way from court. It was an idea I hated from the start and, sneakingly, I am glad that he will now be staying.

  May – June 1502

  The annual calendar of the court does not allow for royal grief, and our duties continue. I present a brave face to the public but, in private, I throw off the deception and my sorrow becomes almost a comfort. Henry spends more time with me. We seem to absorb each other’s grief, salve one another’s pain, and he makes love to me with a desperation born of fear and regret.

  Soon I am able to ease his sorrow further with the news that another child will be born to us in February. Although nothing can bring Arthur back, the knowledge of a new baby lifts our despair — just a little.

  For the first time in months I begin to see the good in the world and, although I am not filled with joy, I can at least find a little pleasure in the gardens, and the sunshine. But then I hear the news that Tyrell has been convicted of treason and executed. I know without doubt that Henry has condemned and executed an innocent man. My emerging happiness is crushed and my newfound faith and love for my husband plummets again.

  How can I trust him? How can I ever have faith in him when his duplicity is so transparent? I have the overwhelming urge to run away, but queens do not run away and, besides, there is nowhere for me to run.

  *

  From the start, my pregnancy is fraught with trouble. I suffer sickness as severely as when I carried Arthur. The king’s mother assures me this is because I am carrying another boy, and I pin my hopes on that. A boy is crucial for Henry’s stability, Henry’s dreams for the future.

  The king tries to forget his trials by burying himself in state business. He persists in his attempt to secure sainthood for the old king Henry VI, and have his remains moved to Westminster. I indulge myself by continuing with the plans for a remodelling of Greenwich Palace.

  I intend to have a private riverside residence for myself with a garden and orchard. I crave somewhere to escape to when I wish it; a place where I can be quiet, away from court, away from the public eye, somewhere to be myself. A place where I can think.

  My privy purse is quite empty so I order my old gowns to be turned and made larger to accommodate the growing child. For a while I contemplate cancelling a planned progress into Wales, but my need to be away from court is too great. I want to go. I rebuff the king’s mother’s advice that I am overtired and not as well as I should be. The strange impulse to quit the court will not be denied.

  Spain is trying to persuade Henry to send the Infanta home. At first he says she is still too unwell, too grieved to travel, but he summons her from Ludlow and insists she stay at court.

  Poor Caterina; her status is altered. She is no longer the Princess of Wales, the future queen. She is an impoverished widow, a dowager princess, and the court no longer falls over themselves to oblige her. Where once she was showered in gifts and affection, now she is largely forgotten.

  I wish Henry would agree to send her back to Spain; she has her whole life before her, but he refuses. He is reluctant to part with her dowry or to lose the bargaining tool she represents. My concerns are raised further when the Spanish ambassador proposes a match between Caterina and little Harry.

  Enough time has passed now to be sure that she does not carry Arthur’s child. Although I am shocked to hear it, Spain is declaring that she is still a virgin and her wedding to Arthur unconsummated. Only Caterina can know that for sure but I remember the post marital joy of my eldest son, and the reports that came to me the next day of him having enjoyed his night ‘in Spain.’

  Poor Harry, to be saddled with his brother’s widow. I hope it comes to nothing. I have more care for Caterina and Harry’s future happiness than I have for state politics. As fair as she may be, she is almost six years Harry’s senior and I rather suspect that, like my own father, my son would prefer to have the choosing of his own bride.

  My head is whirling with too many problems. Every day I receive news, worse than the day before, and on a sunny morning in May my husband comes storming to my chambers, rousing me from sleep.

  “Did you know of this?” he bellows as I drag myself upright in my bed.

  “Know of what?” I squint at him, holding up a hand to block the sun that is streaming in through the open shutters. “What has happened now?”

  He thrusts a piece of parchment at me and I frown at it. The hasty scrawl seems to be by the hand of one of Henry’s informants, one of his spies. I have to read the content twice before I can make sense of it.

  “Oh no …” My heart sets up a heavy thud. I put my hand to my chest and stare up blankly at Henry.

  “You didn’t know.”

  It is not a question. He can see from my reaction that Cecily has not taken me into her confidence. If only she had done. I would have tried to help her. Now, I know without being told that she will need all the help she can get.

  “Who is this man?”

  “This man is nobody. Just a self-seeking social climber looking to bed a princess.”

  “You make it sound worse than it is. They are at least legally wed. At least that is better than her becoming his mistress.”

  “How can it be worse? She is your sister. She is a royal princess and a Viscountess, and she is acting like a trull, sullying herself with a man of the lowest degree.”

  I begin to suspect he is secretly enjoying the disgrace of yet another member of my family.

  “Not the lowest degree surely, Henry. You are overwrought, and not thinking it through properly. It is true it is an unwise marriage, but he is a respectable knight. I can’t imagine Cecily forming an attachment for a common man.”

  He scowls at me, his lips tight.

  “She must be punished. She cannot just marry whom she pleases. I will not have my subjects disobeying me. She has deliberately gone behind my back to consort with this … this …”

  Words fail him. I throw back the covers and begin to slide from bed.

  “I will discover the truth of the matter, Henry. Then we can decide what is to be done.”

  “I have made my decision. I am done with people overriding my authority. I am the king. She will be banished from court and her late husband’s lands and wealth confiscated. I will not have it, I tell you.”

  I watch him quietly. There is no point interfering. He will not listen. He will go his own way and, if that entails the destruction of my entire family, it will not deter him.

  There are so many problems, so many worries that my head sometimes reels with the weight of them all. I need time to come to terms with everything that has happened. I long to get away; I want to escape court, escape politics and most of all, at this moment, I want to escape Henry.

  July 1502

  People are grumbling that it is a mad idea for a woman in my condition to travel so far, but I am queen. Only the king can forbid me, but he seems content that I should go. Perhaps he is as glad to be rid of me as I am to leave.

  I give orders for my lying-in chamber to be made ready at Richmond. By the time I return from Wales, my confinement will almost be upon me. Perhaps things will be better after my son is born; perhaps we can rebuild our marriage then.

  At the last moment I decide to take my sister Catherine with me. She is still smarting after the arrest of her husband but, since Henry has not y
et ordered his execution, we both harbour hopes that William Courtney’s life will be spared. To ensure that he is offered as much comfort as is possible in the chilly damp confines of the Tower, I order winter clothing and warm bedcovers to be sent for him.

  Catherine is grateful and as we set off toward Buckinghamshire we are both in reasonably good spirits. I feel sickly and bloated but it is pleasant to be away from court, to feel the fresh air on my face again. The countryside has a healing quality and even Catherine looks a little less peaked by the time we reach Notley Abbey.

  The Abbot’s lodging is comfortable and, as always, the victuals are tasty indeed. I eat more than I’ve been accustomed to of late, and then Catherine and a few of my ladies settle down for a comfortable evening in the chamber.

  Anne takes out her lute and begins to play, and after a while Dorothy begins to sing in accompaniment. I am as close to contentment as I’ve been since we received the news of Arthur’s death. I lay my head back and close my eyes.

  When a servant enters with a letter, nobody pays him much attention. He hands it to Catherine with a bow and hastily quits the chamber. My sister moves toward the fire where the light is greater and tears it open.

  There is no one close enough to catch her when she falls. I leap from my chair, my head spinning at the sudden movement. Catherine is lying like a broken flower on the hearth. My ladies gather around her, their frightened cries like a flock of startled birds.

  He has done it, I think. Henry has waited until our backs were turned and taken the first opportunity to have Will Courtney killed. Poor, poor Catherine. I pick up the letter that has fallen from her hand and begin to read it. My hand is on my chest, it creeps up to my neck, and my throat fills with grief. The words stand out harshly against the page; the news is even worse than I had imagined.

  Little Edward Courtney was just five years old and too young to die. Lately, everyone’s attention has been on his father; no one noticed that the child was ailing. The news of her son’s death compounds Catherine’s existing grief and brings her down heavily. She begs leave to return to Havering for the arrangements for his burial and, of course, I grant her request. I give her my warmest cloak to wear and promise to pay for the funeral, no expense spared.