Catherine was not the only impediment that stayed Henry’s hand. He had granted the Pretender a pardon before Prior Ralph. Though this presented a small problem that could be circumvented, there was still another more urgent reason to proceed with caution. Regicide was a mortal sin, and he had a superstitious fear of committing the deed. If the responsibility could be transferred to someone else, however—if he could cleanse his hands of blood—that would be a different matter.
At his urging, de Puebla had written Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain on his behalf several times during the past year asking for their advice on the matter of the Duke of York. He had hoped they would recommend that he be put to death. In that case, he could do so with a clear conscience, absolved of the sin, but they had ignored his inquiries on the matter, and worse, they had delayed sending their daughter, Katarina of Aragon, to England to wed Prince Arthur.
Now, at last, the Spanish ambassador had sent word that he wished to see him on a matter of vital importance. Nothing was more vital and important to him than the Spanish marriage—and the Pretender. As Henry waited for him to arrive, his heart hammered in his breast.
Voices sounded at the door as de Puebla was announced. Henry turned. The one-armed ambassador entered, and the door closed behind him. Henry watched him approach, his empty sleeve tucked neatly into the silver belt of his tunic. He inclined his head in greeting.
“Majesty, my sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, have written you with the reply you have been awaiting.”
Henry’s heart raced as he accepted the rolled parchment de Puebla offered him. He unfurled the document, and bent his head. It was what he wanted to hear, yet he felt himself grow pale as he read. He looked up at de Puebla. “King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella state that the marriage cannot take place, and they cannot send their daughter to England, as long as the royal blood of the rival line survives in England,” he said, lowering himself into a chair. They meant not just the Pretender. They also meant young Edward, Earl of Warwick. Orphaned by the age of three, he was now a young man of twenty-four. He had been a ward of the Woodville queen’s relatives and they had mistreated him until they fell from power when he was nine. Henry had been obliged to imprison him in the Tower when he took the throne, and there he had remained. By all accounts he was a lonely and gentle soul, obedient to a fault. In mind, he was still an innocent, a child who couldn’t tell a goose from a capon.
Henry put a hand up to his brow, and swallowed on the constriction in his throat. He gave a nod, and managed a wave of the hand. The door closed behind de Puebla.
He looked up at the sky with moist eyes, his heart aching. O God, I don’t want to do this! Let there be another way, I beseech you . . .
Richard sat on his pallet, drinking wine from his battered tin cup, his eye on Long Roger and Thomas Astwood playing cards with his other two jailors by the flickering light of the candles. These two had offered to help him escape, and he had turned them down. What was there to escape to? Catherine was lost to him, unmanned and unrecognizable as he was now. He had no hope of ever seeing Dickon again, and he was of no use to his aunt anymore. He downed another swallow of wine. He had long suspected these two of Yorkist sympathies, for Long Roger and Thomas had shown him kindness. Nevertheless, he was surprised that they would be willing to risk their lives again. Long Will had suffered in the Tower before he had received a pardon, and Thomas had nearly died on the gallows. In one of those dramatic gestures Henry liked to make, citing the boy’s youth, he reprieved Thomas at the last minute as he stood with the rope around his neck, to the cheers of the crowd. No doubt Henry had smiled, thinking himself merciful in sparing this one life while taking hundreds of others.
Richard brought his cup of wine to his lips and was about to down another gulp when strange voices broke into his thoughts. He looked up. Long Roger, Strangeways, and the others had laid down their cards and stood conversing with another man whose face he could not see in the dim light. He edged closer and peered into the darkness. The voice sounded familiar.
“Aye, sir—” Long Roger said to him, turning to look at the others.
They all filed out as the man watched them leave. The door shut with a thud. There was a jangle of keys, and from the shadows a second man emerged. He was burly, with broad shoulders and bulging muscles. Richard recoiled, recognizing him as one of the ruffians who had broken his face. Shaking and limp with terror, he dropped his cup, splattering his wine. He scooted backward until he slammed against the wall, and looked on in horror as they unlocked his cell and entered.
“Have no fear, we’re not here to do you harm,” Digby said.
Richard could barely hear him. Digby’s voice seemed to come to him from far away. He dragged his eyes to his face.
“I bring an offer from the king.”
Richard could not speak, even if he had wanted to.
“I shall be blunt, since you are clearly uncomfortable with our presence. Below your chamber is that of Edward, Earl of Warwick. For reasons of state, Warwick must die, and the king wishes you to help bring about his demise.”
Richard found his voice then. “You’re mad! I will never do such a thing!”
“You haven’t heard the offer the king makes you.”
“What can he offer me that is worth having anymore?”
“The life of your son,” Digby said quietly.
Richard gasped.
“He is offering you the life of your son, in return for the life of the Earl of Warwick. If you do not do this, your son will die.”
Richard stared at him, scarcely breathing, his heart pounding. “What kind of a monster makes such an offer? My son is not yet three years old. Warwick is still a child at twenty-four!”
“I will not tolerate any more insults to my king. Make no mistake about it, you and Warwick are going to die, the only question that remains is how.”
Digby’s words fell on Richard like burning stones. How many times had he prayed for death in the nearly two years since his capture? How many times had he lamented that he fled death at Taunton? Yet now, as sentence of death was pronounced on him, he knew he still wanted to live. To live!
“You will ensure the life of your son by getting Warwick to agree to escape the Tower with you.”
“I know not if my son is even alive.”
“We are prepared to prove to you that he is.”
A long-forgotten pang of joy came and went. “How?”
“We will bring him to you.”
O Almighty Father—to see my son one last time! To know he lives—to kiss his sweet face—to hear him laugh—Dickon, who wouldn’t know and didn’t care that he was deformed—
Digby was waiting.
“What would I have to do?”
“If you agree, a hole will be bored in the corner of this chamber so you can speak with Warwick. You will lay out your plans. Whatever you need will be brought to you. You will escape, and before you leave the Tower premises, you will be caught. You will go to your death at Tubers.”
Richard put a hand to his roaring head. “Tyburn,” he echoed, barely aware that he spoke.
“If you do this, the king is prepared to be merciful. Death by hanging, instead of evisceration. But for that, you must comply in one more respect.”
Richard dropped his hand. He couldn’t see Digby and the rogue with him; he had trouble with his vision. He wanted them gone. The words they spoke made him feel sick to the pit of his stomach, but these men were the only earthly link with his child, and he wanted to see his boy.
“In return for the commutation of your sentence, before you die at Tyburn, you will confess again that you are not the son of King Edward IV.”
Richard was silent for a long while. At length, he lifted his head and looked at them. “When I see my son, I will give you my answer.”
Richard drank all night on the eve of his execution. He needed courage, and thankfully, his guards did not deny him the wine to blur reality. The next morning, fortified and somewhat
inebriated, he confessed his sins to the priest they sent, chief among these his involvement in convicting poor, innocent Warwick of treason. All else he had done in his life paled in comparison to this, the greatest of his sins. Whatever misery this day wrought, he hoped it would help him atone in God’s eyes for bearing false witness against an innocent.
He stood calmly, bare-legged and clad only in a white kneelength shirt of the condemned as his hands were bound with rope. Someone threw a blanket around his shoulders and his captors led him down to the boat that would take him to his death. For fear that Yorkist sympathizers might mount an escape effort during the fourmile journey from the Tower to Tyburn, Henry had wished Richard to make the longest part of his journey by river, but he was not to be permitted to sit, for the crowds needed to see him. Standing up in the small craft, surrounded by boatloads of armed men, they pushed away from the shore. Each time the vessel lurched, Richard lost his footing and almost fell, to the amusement of his guards. “Can ye swim, Perkin?” they would ask, and then answer their own question: “He’s a boatman’s son, ain’t he?” and they’d burst into riotous laughter.
Richard ignored them. He wanted to savor his last look at the world he was leaving behind in the springtime of his life, and never had it looked more beautiful. It was the twenty-third of November, 1499. On this day four years ago he had met Catherine at Stirling Castle. A light snow had fallen during the night and London shimmered in the morning sunshine. A line came to him, Like snow in the river, for a moment white—then melted and gone forever. Life was like that, glistening one moment; vanished in the next.
The bells of St. Paul’s pealed for terce and were echoed across the city like a bright melody. So they had chimed when he had held Dickon in his arms, filling his heart with joy. His son was three years old and came into his cell holding Digby’s hand, a sight that so wounded him, he had to avert his gaze.
“May I have time with my child alone?” Richard had asked, and Digby, to his credit, had allowed him that.
“Little one, come to me—fear not—aye, that’s it, that’s it—” Richard had murmured to his wide-eyed little boy when they were alone together. There was a knot in his throat as he watched Dickon close the gap between them with wobbly steps. “May I hold you in my arms? May I kiss you?” Dickon gave him a nod, and Richard scooped him up and laid his head against the child’s soft hair, his tender cheek. He closed his eyes, overcome with the sweetness of him, and rocked with him back and forth. He released him from the cradle of his arms and took his child’s face into his hands. “Dickon, we have not much time, and I know you do not remember me, but I have to tell you something—something important—something I want you to try and never forget—”
The child stared at him with eyes that reminded him of his own as they had once been. “Dickon, I want you to remember that your father and your mother love you very, very much. Do you understand?”
The child nodded solemnly.
“I know that because I am your father, Dickon, and I love you more than life itself—”
There was a commotion at the door and Digby came in with a man-at-arms. Richard’s heart pounded in his chest—so soon! He’d barely had a minute—
The key jangled in the lock. Richard bent his head to Dickon’s ear. “Remember, my son—”
With tears blinding his sight and grief rending his heart, Richard had surrendered his boy to the men who came to take him away.
Richard looked up at the blue sky as the boat cut across the waves. He inhaled deep of the cold morning air. He had seen his son. He had saved his life. To do it, he’d given up his own, and also offered Warwick’s. The simple young man had been like butter in his hands and had agreed to escape with him from the Tower, though it was clear Warwick did not understand why he should flee, and only assented to please his new friend. He was a sweet and gentle lad, and when Richard recounted his sorrows, he had tried to comfort him. Comfort him—he, Richard, the vile betrayer! He could hear Edward’s voice in the wind speaking through the hole bored in the vaulting, “How goes it with you, Cousin Richard? Be of good cheer. All will be well.”
Richard turned his gaze to the riverbank. The only aspect that spoiled God’s creation, he thought, was man, and he himself was no exception. He should die, and he should suffer, both in this world, and in the next. He had much to answer for.
Wherever he looked, crowds of people hugged the shore, some jostling one another, others standing waist deep in the icy water to gain a better view. Across the river they hurled stones at him and cupped their mouths to bellow insults. London Bridge loomed ahead, swarming with ravens. He could hear their ugly cawing as they stood atop human heads and pecked out bits of rancid flesh. He closed his eyes. They would be feasting on his soon enough. A gust of wind blew, banishing the stink in his nostrils. How he had missed the touch of the wind on his face; the smell of the river; the cry of the gulls! So had it been on the deck of the Cuckoo, when he’d stood with his arm around Catherine, gazing at St. Michael’s Mount taking shape before them. All things had seemed possible then, but he had lost the throw before he had even cast the dice. He found it strangely fitting that the gamble he had put in motion by water should end by water. Perhaps, he thought, it was Fate’s last jest, her way of bidding him farewell.
The boat changed direction. He opened his eyes to see Westminster Palace drawing near.
“You’ll be transported by cart from here,” Digby said, “to Tyburn.”
Tyburn, where common criminals are butchered. Richard didn’t bother to acknowledge him. He was preparing to meet his Maker and his mind was already beyond the reach of the world of men. He climbed meekly out on the dock and looked up at the Palace. Catherine was at Windsor, not here; there would be no farewell, and her beloved face would not be in the crowd. Not that he wanted her to see his ugly end, but his heart ached that he would never see her again on this earth. How different England would have been had he been allowed to rule. Kinder, gentler, in many ways. Full of music, instead of terror. But God had judged, and it was not to be.
Richard climbed into the cart. He tried as best he could to keep his balance as it rattled its way to Tyburn, bearing him along, his bevy of armed guards riding at his side. He wondered vaguely what it would feel like to be hanged. He had heard his jailors talking. If a man was lucky, they said, he broke his neck as soon as he fell, and death was quick. But if he wasn’t, death came by slow suffocation, and men gasped and gagged and turned red, their mouths opening and shutting like a dying fish until they choked. That could take as long as an hour.
They turned into Tyburn Lane. On this day, a Saturday, he would meet his doom. Henry had always regarded Saturday as his lucky day. Richard allowed himself a faint smile. Why did a king need to hang a boatman’s son on his lucky day? Did anyone wonder?
His execution on the Feast Day of Saint Clement, the first pope, meant that everyone could attend, and the crowds, held back by wooden barriers, were thick, lining both sides of the streets west to Tyburn. So many had come that, in some places, they were slammed up against the doorways of the squalid, tottering houses and taverns that populated this area of Middlesex. They booed and threw rotted stuff at him, and often landed a blow, like the wormy apple that had struck him on the cheek, and the piece of stinking pig intestine that had landed at his feet, fouling the cart.
The village of Tyburn drew into view. A special scaffold had been erected to raise him high above the crowd. Etched against the blue sky, the noose hung waiting. Digby helped him dismount and led him to a crude staircase. But light-headed with wine, his hands tied, his legs blue and almost numb from cold in his thin shirt, he could scarcely manage the climb and a guard had to help push him up each step. When he reached the platform, the executioner placed the noose around his neck. The rough hemp scratched his skin. A silence fell. He scanned the faces around him, and saw that Kate’s husband, William Courtenay, was there, richly clad and riding the war-horse he remembered from Exeter. Far more humble m
ounts bore the Spanish ambassador and an alderman and chronicler of London named Robert Fabyan, whom he had met in passing at court. Their expressions were impassive, yet strangely, he sensed sympathy from all three. In the crowd, not all were hostile. Some had been weeping, and all their faces were upturned to him. He thought of a field of sunflowers gazing at the sun.
It was time, and he was prepared.
With the salvation of his soul hanging in the balance, he was ready to confess the truth. The words he would use were the ones that he had used in the Chapel of St. John; they had worked with Henry then, and they would work now. They would save his body from being cut down alive from the gibbet, butchered, and eviscerated, with his bloody entrails burned before his eyes. They would save his immortal soul. And they would save the life of his only child.
King James’s words rang in his ears: Far from recognizing you as their king, they don’t even see you as an Englishman! That was what counted in the end, wasn’t it? To his people he was, and would remain forever, a foreigner, and if Henry was successful, a false prince. He braced himself, and spoke.
“I stand by my former confession that I was never the person I said I was, and that I came to the shores of England a stranger.” He did not lie. Each would hear in his words what they wanted to hear—what the Tudor willed them to believe—that he was not the son of his father, King Edward. Few would ever suspect the truth he meant: I never was Perkin Warbeck, and I never was an Englishman, for the people of the land of my birth rejected me. Even fewer would wonder why he who was not born an English subject should die a traitor’s death for treason to an English king. He lifted his eyes to the November sky and murmured Christ’s last prayer on the cross: In manus Tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum—
The executioner released the trapdoor beneath his feet.
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