The Queen of Last Hopes

by Susan Higginbotham

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2011 by Susan Higginbotham

  Cover and internal design © 2011 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by Susan Zucker

  Cover images © Pauline Thomas/Millennium Images, UK; Bastetamn/iStockphoto.com

  The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart, trans. Stephanie Gibbs/Kathryn Karczewska.

  Copyright 2001 by Taylor & Francis Group LLC—Books. Reproduced with permission of Taylor & Francis Group LLC—Books via Copyright Clearance Center.

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious and used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Higginbotham, Susan.

  The queen of last hopes : the story of Margaret of Anjou / by Susan Higginbotham.

  p. cm.

  1. Margaret, of Anjou, Queen, consort of Henry VI, King of England, 1430-1482--Fiction. 2. Queens--Great Britain--Fiction. 3. Great Britain--History--Henry VI, 1422-1461--Fiction. 4. Great Britain--History--Edward IV, 1461-1483--Fiction. 5. Great Britain--Kings and rulers--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3608.I364Q44 2011

  813’.6--dc22

  2010039641

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Characters

  Prologue

  Part I

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Part II

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  Part III

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  Part IV

  30

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Further Reading

  Acknowledgments

  Reading Group Guide

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  All of the named characters in this novel are based on historical figures. I have included all those who have extended or recurring speaking parts, those who are mentioned frequently by other characters, and those who are important to understanding the relationships between the characters.

  The House of Lancaster

  Henry VI, King of England. Son of Henry V and Katherine of Valois.

  Margaret of Anjou (sometimes called “Marguerite”), his queen.

  Edward of Lancaster, Prince of Wales, their son.

  Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, uncle of Henry VI.

  The House of York

  Richard, Duke of York.

  Cecily Neville, his wife, Duchess of York.

  Edward (“Ned”), Earl of March, later Edward IV, their son. Married to Elizabeth Woodville.

  Edmund, Earl of Rutland, their son.

  Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, their daughter.

  George, Duke of Clarence, their son.

  Richard, Duke of Gloucester, their son, later Richard III.

  The Nevilles

  Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.

  Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick, his wife.

  Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence, their daughter.

  Anne Neville, Princess of Wales, their daughter. Married to Edward of Lancaster.

  John Neville, Lord Montagu, later Earl of Northumberland, later Marquess of Montagu, brother to Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.

  Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, father to Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and John Neville.

  The Beauforts

  Edmund Beaufort, Marquess of Dorset and Earl of Somerset, later Duke of Somerset (died 1455).

  Eleanor Beauchamp, his wife.

  Henry (“Hal”) Beaufort, their first son, Earl of Dorset, later Duke of Somerset (died 1464).

  Edmund Beaufort, their second son, styled Duke of Somerset after 1464 (died 1471).

  John Beaufort, their third son (died 1471).

  Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond. Cousin to Henry, Edmund, and John Beaufort. Mother to Henry Tudor, later Henry VII.

  The Tudors

  Owen Tudor, stepfather to Henry VI and husband of Katherine of Valois, Henry V’s widow.

  Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, son of Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois and half brother to Henry VI. Married to Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond.

  Henry Tudor, son of Edward Tudor and Margaret Beaufort. Later Henry VII.

  Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, son of Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois and half brother to Henry VI.

  The French Royal Family

  Charles VII, uncle to Margaret of Anjou.

  Louis XI, his son, cousin to Margaret of Anjou.

  The House of Anjou

  René of Anjou, father to Margaret of Anjou.

  Isabelle, mother to Margaret of Anjou.

  Jeanne de Laval, stepmother to Margaret of Anjou.

  The Scottish Royal Family

  Mary of Gueldres, dowager queen and regent of Scotland, widow of James II.

  James III, King of Scotland.

  Dukes of Burgundy

  Phillip, Duke of Burgundy.

  Charles, his son, Count of Charolais, later Duke of Burgundy.

  Others

  Bertrand de Beauvau, Seigneur de Précigny.

  Black Jack, a thief.

  Pierre de Brézé, friend of Margaret of Anjou.

  John Cleger, groom to Edward of Lancaster.

  Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon (died 1461).

  Marie, Countess of Devon, his wife, cousin of and lady in waiting to Margaret of Anjou.

  John Courtenay, Earl of Devon (died 1471), brother of Thomas Courtenay.

  John Dudley, Constable of the Tower of London.

  Lorenzo de Florencia, subordinate to Bishop of Terni.

  John Fortescue, tutor to Edward of Lancaster.

  William, Lord Hastings, chamberlain to Edward IV.

  Joan Hill, mistress to Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

  Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter.

  James Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews.

  John Morton, administrator.

  Katherine Peniston, later Katherine Vaux. Lady-in-waiting to Margaret of Anjou.

  William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk. Later Marquess of Suffolk, later Duke of Suffolk.

  Alice de la Pole (Chaucer), his wife.

  Thomas (“Tom”), Lord Ros. Older half brother of Henry, Edmund, and John Beaufort.

  Emma Scales, lady in waiting to Margaret of Anjou.

  Charles Somerset, natural son of Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and Joan Hill.

  Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham.

  Anne, his wife, Duchess of Buckingham.

&n
bsp; Andrew Trollope, soldier.

  William Vaux, knight in service of Margaret of Anjou.

  John de Vere, Earl of Oxford.

  Will, servant of Earl of Warwick.

  Anthony Woodville, son of Jacquetta Woodville and brother to Elizabeth Woodville.

  Elizabeth Woodville (Lady Grey), later Queen of England.

  Jacquetta Woodville, Duchess of Bedford. Mother to Elizabeth Woodville.

  A man other than my husband sits on England’s throne today. He is healthy and still relatively young; he has two fine young sons, an utterly loyal younger brother (another brother, the disloyal one, has long since been disposed of, in the efficient way this man has), a lovely queen, a passel of marriageable daughters. Sometimes as I sit in my chair at Dampierre and watch the sun setting over the Loire, I amuse myself by wondering what would happen if this king suddenly went mad, or simply died young. Would his nobles start to fight among themselves? Would his heir be cast aside? Would those whom he thought most loyal prove disloyal? And above all, what would his queen do? Would she make the same mistakes I did, or would she learn from mine?

  For I made plenty. But soon, the Lord and King Louis willing, I shall be laid near my parents’ tomb at Angers, having at last followed the men I loved to the grave. Then my maker shall hear my story and theirs as well. When our tales are at last told together as they should be, the Lord—and anyone else who cares to listen—shall judge us all, for good or for ill. There is nothing I can do now, with my life in back of me, other than to pray for mercy and hope that He will be kind.

  I became my Henry’s queen long before I saw him: at Tours in 1444, to be precise. I was fourteen. My marriage was supposed to end a conflict between England and France that had been going on for decades before I was even born.

  “You will be our lady of peace,” my uncle by marriage, King Charles VII of France, informed me. I had come to Tours with my father, King René of Anjou, whose sister Marie was Charles’s queen, and my mother, Isabelle. The English delegation had just inspected me, though “introduction” was the word everyone had used.

  “They were satisfied, then?” I asked.

  “My dear, how could they not be?”

  “I have always said that I had a treasure at Angers,” my father said.

  Charles halfway raised his eyebrows before he caught himself. I suspected that he was thinking that I was my father’s only treasure, for it was true that my father was not, for his position, an especially wealthy man. Though he was known as King of Sicily and Jerusalem, Duke of Bar, Lorraine, and Anjou, and Count of Provence, his title to Jerusalem was flimsy, it had to be admitted, and he had given up his quest for Naples two years before. His lands of Maine were under English occupation. “What dowry shall I have?” I asked. It seemed only right that I as the bride should know.

  “Majorca and Minorca,” my uncle said, and I winced. If anything was as empty as my father’s claim to Sicily and Jerusalem, it was his claim to Majorca and Minorca. “And twenty thousand francs. Well, of course the English shall get a two-year truce; I suppose that counts also.”

  It was humiliating being sold so cheaply, even with the truce thrown in. My distress must have shown on my face, for Charles said, “You see, my dear, they want this marriage and peace as much as we do, and frankly, they need it more. The sixth Henry isn’t the warrior his father was, by all reports. Not a warrior at all.”

  “But a good man, they say,” added my father, putting his arm around me. “Don’t worry, my dear.”

  ***

  I was formally betrothed in the Church of St. Martin at Tours on May 24, 1444, with William de la Pole, then the Earl of Suffolk, standing proxy for Henry. My uncle led me to the choir where the Bishop of Brescia, the papal legate, stood, and Suffolk and I promised to love and cherish each other.

  If a heart can break more than once, mine was to break for the first time six years later, when the whoresons—but that is for another time. I like to remember my friend Suffolk as I saw him that day at the altar, his dark eyes alive with amusement as he gave his strong responses following my somewhat shaky ones. “Don’t worry, my lady, you’ll be an old hand at this when it comes time to marry the king in person,” he whispered as the ceremony ended and we processed to the Abbey of St. Julien, where I was to be feasted like a queen.

  There was dancing much, much later in the evening. Whether I was a trifle affected from the wine that had been flowing in abundance or simply from it being well past my usual hour of retirement—for my life at Angers was not a boisterous one—I was feeling giddy when Suffolk partnered me at the dance. “If you were a proper husband to me, you wouldn’t stare so at one particular lady,” I said demurely.

  He followed my eye to where his had just been: fixated upon the figure of Agnes Sorel, my uncle’s mistress. Suffolk gave an excellent English version of a French shrug. “I beg your pardon, your grace. But it is difficult not to look, you must admit. She is very lovely—though not, of course, as our new English queen.”

  “Flatterer,” I said, and Suffolk did not gainsay me. Agnes Sorel was blond and stately; I was little and darker, though not, I knew, charmless. “She is my uncle’s official mistress,” I babbled on—quite unnecessarily, I realized later, for Suffolk, who was in his late forties, had been serving in France since he was a young man and probably knew as much about the court here as I did, if not more. “Do you have such things in England?”

  Suffolk shook his head gravely. “We are not nearly as advanced, I fear. Our mistresses are entirely unofficial.” We paused to take some intricate turns, to general applause, for my grandmother, who had had the rearing of me, had never stinted on dancing masters, and Suffolk was an accomplished partner. “I shall be returning to England shortly. Do you have anything you would like to ask me about the king?”

  I considered this question as best I could while dancing. As I turned in harmony with Suffolk, Agnes Sorel once again passed into my line of sight, which suggested a natural topic. “Does he have a mistress? I suppose I should know these things in advance.”

  My partner nearly stumbled, and had to put a hand to his mouth to stifle laughter. “I beg your pardon, your grace.”

  “I do not see how that is such a foolish question,” I said frostily.

  “In the case of most men, it would not be—but for anyone who knows our king! He is a very pious man. Indeed, some of the entertainment here tonight would have appalled him. Those rather underclad Moorish dancers we had earlier—There’s none such to be seen at his court. Nor will you find any mistresses in your husband’s life, in or out of court. You’ll have nothing to worry about on that score.”

  Did that mean I had to worry about anything else? But the dance had ended and it was time to take my place back at the dais beside the Queen of France, so I never got a chance to ask my next question.

  Though I was Queen of England in name now, further preparations and negotiations had to be made before I could come to my new country, and my uncle and my father had military affairs to take care of, so I returned home to my father’s castle of Angers. There I passed nearly another year before it was at last time to begin my journey to England. Though I kept myself busy learning the language of my new country, I also devoted much time to reminding all at Angers of my new position, for as the youngest of my father’s four legitimate children I had hitherto been of limited importance, and previous proposals for my marriage had come to nothing. In enjoying my chance to preen I was, after all, only human, and only fourteen.

  At last, in February, my family traveled to Nancy, where my older sister, Yolande (who had long been affianced to Ferry de Vaudemont and thus had missed the opportunity to become Queen of England herself ) was to finally marry her betrothed. It was an important occasion for me as well, for I was to travel on to Rouen and thence finally to my husband across the Channel.

  It was a grand occasion, at which my uncle King Charles and most of the French nobility were present, and a hugely expensive one, but my
uncle found leisure to call me to him during one of the rare moments of inactivity. “Queenship suits you,” he said, nodding at me. “You’ve grown taller since you were last here.”

  “Yes, your grace.” I forbore from pointing out that I was still at an age where one could be expected to grow.

  “It is time we spoke of your duties as queen.”

  I frowned, hoping that this was not the sort of talk my mother had had with Yolande and me as we traveled to my sister’s wedding. “I know my duties,” I announced. “I am to be virtuous, to manage my household carefully, to intercede with my husband’s subjects, to—”

  The king cut me off impatiently. “Yes, yes, all those. But you are a daughter of France, my dear. It is your duty to your country of which I speak.”

  “I am Queen of England,” I reminded him.

  “Yes, but you will never cease to be a Frenchwoman. You have the opportunity to do much good with this marriage. Good to our country, and even to England.”

  “Through peace?”

  “Through peace on the terms we want. And what we want is the return of Maine. Suffolk refused to promise it to us when he was here; he said that doing so would exceed his instructions. Well, I can’t blame him for that. Such a promise is best given by King Henry himself. You, my dear, are the best person to persuade him to give it.”

  “Me?”

  “Why not? A pretty face and soft words can do wonders.” The king gave me a chuck on the chin.

  “But won’t his people be upset if he simply agrees to give it up?” I discreetly moved just out of chucking range.

  My uncle shrugged. “That’s his concern.”

  Were it not impertinent, I would have said that it would presumably be my concern too. “I will do my best, Uncle.”

  “Good girl. Mind you, the timing must be right; it’s not something you need bring up on your wedding night, say. Even Henry will have better things on his mind.” I blushed, and my uncle chuckled. “But after a few months of marriage, it will be quite natural to bring it up. I trust your instinct will tell you when. You ladies are instinctive, they all say.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” I said, grateful that I was getting a reprieve of sorts.

  ***

  By and by, I arrived in Rouen, which of course in those days was still occupied by the English, most notably its lieutenant, Richard, Duke of York, and his wife and young children, who lived at Rouen Castle. The duke and duchess had four children at the time: two daughters, Anne and baby Elizabeth, and two little sons, Edward and Edmund, almost three and almost two respectively. I am not a woman to have premonitions, it appears, for I remember the Edward who was to have such a great effect on my life only as a boisterous little boy who was big for his age and who to his nurse’s dismay derived great satisfaction from smacking his thumb, not out of fretfulness but out of the sheer joy of having a thumb so conveniently at hand to smack.