Passage to Pontefract

by Jean Plaidy

  It was all over now. But Thomas and John were reckless. Of one thing she could be certain: they would support Richard because all their hopes of advancement would come through him.

  Richard was now in his eighteenth year. He was no longer a boy to be told what to do. He had selected a small coterie of friends at the head of which was Robert de Vere. De Vere was not the wisest of counsellors but it was always to his advice that Richard listened. Moreover he was inclined to act on impulse and because his temper was quick and was becoming increasingly violent, he was apt to act first and think afterwards.

  There were bound to be warring factions about him and there was a great resentment towards de Vere. This was taken up by the people who blamed every reverse on the favourite. They still believed in their King; they cheered him when he rode through the streets of cities and the countryside; he looked so much the King and as yet they would find scapegoats for any action which they did not like.

  John of Gaunt was back in England having come to no satisfactory conclusion regarding Castile, and about him had formed a group which was known as the Lancastrian Party. He had gone to Scotland and returned after a disastrous campaign. He had pursued the Scots who had burned their towns and villages before him so that when he arrived in them his army was without provisions. It was impossible to continue in these circumstances and the English had had to retreat back to the border.

  John was blamed for lack of energy in conducting the war and the matter was brought up by the Court party in Parliament and there was a bitter discord mainly between de Vere and John.

  De Vere was certain of his influence with the King and he believed that he could rid himself of this troublesome uncle who, he knew, would do everything within his power to ruin him if he had the chance.

  And John of Gaunt was a very powerful man.

  De Vere decided that he might be able to get rid of John of Gaunt once and for all.

  The Court was at Salisbury and the King and Queen were to attend High Mass in the Cathedral there. This was going to be a very ceremonious occasion.

  Robert de Vere had invited the King and Queen to sup with him before the Mass and they had repaired to his private apartments in the castle. There were but a few guests and it was a very merry party until there was a sudden interruption.

  The door of the apartment was flung open and a friar whose habit showed him to be a Carmelite rushed in and threw himself at the feet of the King.

  Richard was startled. ‘What means this?’ he cried.

  The friar stammered: ‘My lord, my lord. I come to warn you.’

  ‘Speak, friar, speak,’ cried Robert de Vere. ‘The King commands you to say what it is you have to tell him.’

  The friar lifted his eyes to the King’s face. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘your life is in danger. There are those who plot to kill you.’

  ‘What plot is this?’ cried the King. ‘And how do you know of it?’

  ‘I know of it, my lord. I have overheard the conspirators. It is a plot with the cities of London and Coventry. They will band together and take your throne from you.’

  ‘This man is mad,’ said the King.

  ‘No, no, my lord. It is not so.’

  ‘Let us hear him out,’ said de Vere. ‘Who has made this plot? Who is at the heart of it? Tell us that.’

  ‘It is your uncle, my lord King. Your uncle, John of Gaunt, who seeks to overthrow you and take the throne.’

  ‘My uncle!’ cried Richard.

  It was significant that he believed it possible. His Uncle John of Gaunt plotting against him, trying to take the crown. Wasn’t that what he had always wanted?

  But they had found out in time. The friar should be rewarded. He would strike first.

  ‘Arrest the Duke of Lancaster,’ cried Richard. ‘Arrest the traitor.’

  One of the members of the party, Sir John Clanvowe, who was Prior of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, begged the King to restrain his anger.

  ‘My lord, my lord,’ he cried, ‘it would be well to find out first whether there is any truth in this friar’s story.’

  Anne was looking at Richard with a warning expression in her eyes; she too was advising caution.

  Caution! He did not want caution. He had always known John of Gaunt had longed for the crown. He wanted that son of his to be heir to the throne. He had always wanted it.

  Richard’s heart called out for immediate vengeance. He wanted to show them all that he was capable of quick and firm action. He felt excited and desperately frustrated.

  A kind of madness seized him. It was the old Plantagenet temper which so many of them had seen before, handed down through the generations – and it was out of control. He took off his hat and in a sudden rage threw it out of the window. The company stared at him in amazement. Then he took off his shoes and they followed the hat.

  When he had done that he felt he had relieved his feelings and was much calmer.

  Anne had risen and laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘You should question this friar, Richard,’ she whispered. ‘We should endeavour to discover whether he speaks the truth. Demand of him that he tell you the names of those who are concerned in this.’

  It was wise, of course. He knew it. He should not condemn his uncle without proof. Robert was watching him intently. Robert had planned that he would impulsively arrest John of Gaunt and hurry him off to the Tower, and have his head off his shoulders before he had time to work out some plan to show that he was innocent.

  Richard had wanted to do what Robert wanted. Robert was his friend. Robert always thought of him first. He had said so.

  There was a step outside the chamber and a gasp of horror when John of Gaunt himself came into the room.

  ‘They are waiting for you, my lord,’ he began. ‘They wonder why you and the Queen are delayed.’

  At the sight of the King’s uncle, the friar seemed to fall into a frenzy.

  ‘There is the traitor!’ he cried. ‘Seize him. Cut off his head. Put him to death before he kills you, my lord.’

  John stared at the friar in amazement.

  ‘What madman is this?’ he demanded.

  ‘He has just made an accusation against you,’ Richard told him.

  ‘An accusation! What accusation?’

  ‘That you are plotting with the people of London and Coventry to kill me and take the crown.’

  ‘Plotting! Take the crown! He is indeed a madman. Can you see the people of London joining me in any plot? They might like me a little better than they once did … but I am still hated by them. This is a madman, nephew. He should be put under restraint.’

  Richard turned to the friar. ‘You hear that?’

  ‘I hear, my lord,’ said the friar boldly. ‘But protestations do not make innocence.’

  ‘I would hear what this is all about,’ said John.

  He was told briefly. ‘It is not even a clever plot,’ he said. ‘It is arrant nonsense. I tell you, I am innocent of any will to do you harm. I will take on any in battle who accuse me and prove myself.’

  Richard, face to face with his uncle, was now completely swayed to his side. The Carmelite was lying. It was a plot he had fabricated.

  Richard hated to suspect that people were plotting against his life. It unnerved him. He wanted everyone to love him as the people used to before the peasants’ revolt.

  Now all his fury was turned onto the friar. ‘Take him away,’ he cried. ‘Let him be put to death. He is a traitor and a liar. There is no plot.’

  The guards came forward but John held up his hand.

  ‘My lord, this man must be questioned. He must know the names of those he is accusing. I shall insist that this matter is sifted to the bottom. I cannot allow such accusations to be made against me and not proved false. It is clear to me that this man is only a tool of real villains.’

  John was looking hard at de Vere as he spoke. The King’s friend was standing very still. He looked a little uneasy and John was very much conscious
of this.

  ‘This is too important a matter to be lightly laid aside,’ went on John. ‘Let the friar be questioned. Let him produce his evidence. We must discover the meaning of this accusation. It may be that there is something behind it.’

  ‘Let him be taken away,’ said the King. ‘This is not the end of the matter.’

  Sir Simon Burley led the friar out of the apartment and at the door they were met by five knights, among them Sir John Holland the King’s half-brother.

  ‘What’s afoot?’ asked Holland.

  Simon told him.

  ‘A plot! To kill the King! John of Gaunt accused!’ cried Holland. ‘We must get to the bottom of this. We shall take charge of this matter. Give the fellow to me, good Simon.’

  Simon was somewhat reluctant but he did not wish to make an enemy of the King’s brother and so the Carmelite friar passed out of his hands.

  His name was John Latemar and he persisted in his story. There was a plot to kill the King. It had been fabricated by John of Gaunt together with the leading citizens of London and Coventry. That was all he would say.

  ‘We shall make him talk,’ said Holland.

  He wanted him to talk. He wanted him to incriminate John of Gaunt. He hated John of Gaunt who, he believed, was capable of plotting the murder of the King. If the King were murdered and John of Gaunt took the throne, there would be little gain for the King’s half-brothers.

  The fellow must be made to talk. There were means.

  Holland knew of the most devilish means – such as to make even a holy friar talk.

  There was something remote about this friar. He did not seem to suffer the weaknesses of ordinary men. If it occurred to them that he was suffering from madness and had a firm belief that he was speaking the truth they would not admit it. They wanted there to have been a plot. They wanted to go to the King and say: ‘This John Latemar has confessed. He swears it was John of Gaunt who was plotting against the King’s life.’ Holland wanted John of Gaunt to lay his head upon the block – and then no more of John of Gaunt.

  But no matter what vile and obscene tortures, what hideous mutilations were inflicted on the friar he would give no names.

  In the streets of Salisbury people were congregating. They talked of nothing but the plot the Carmelite friar had discovered. John of Gaunt was at the heart of it. They too hated John of Gaunt. They wanted him to be proved guilty. They wanted to witness his execution. They would cheer on the day he went to the scaffold. They wanted their handsome young King to be freed of the envy of his rapacious uncle.

  The tension was great as the day fixed for the enquiry drew near. People crowded into the streets, everyone eager to get a glimpse of the friar. They were taking sides. The friar was innocent, said some. He was a great man. He had warned the King although he knew he could risk his life by so doing. John of Gaunt was the villain. Had he not always been?

  Sir John Holland came to the King on the morning of the day fixed for the enquiry. Richard was as usual in the company of the Queen and Robert de Vere.

  ‘My lord brother,’ he said, ‘there can be no enquiry.’

  Richard looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘The friar is dead, my lord.’

  ‘Dead! But he was not ill when he was taken away.’

  ‘He has died since.’

  The King looked at the Queen and from the Queen to Robert. Anne had turned pale; there was real anguish in her face. Robert’s expression was enigmatical.

  ‘It was necessary to question him,’ said Holland. ‘He was a stubborn man.’

  The King turned away and put his hand over his eyes, and Anne signed to Holland to leave them.

  Sir John bowed and retired. He himself was a little uneasy. The torture administered under his direction had been savage.

  When the body of the friar was examined and it was realised what had been done to him the King was overcome with horror. So was John of Gaunt. Neither Richard nor his uncle believed in that sort of torture. If men were against them they were all for the quick stroke of the sword or the axe but not that obscene and filthy torture which had been carried out on this man.

  Richard wept and the Queen sent everyone away that she might comfort him as she believed only she could. Richard lay on his bed and she sat beside him stroking his hair.

  ‘’Tis done, ’tis done,’ she said. ‘There is nothing we can do now to change it. We should never have allowed your half-brother to have care of him.’

  She had already discovered that there was great cruelty in John Holland.

  ‘And to what avail!’ cried Richard. ‘What did we discover? Nothing.’

  She tried to soothe him. She was beginning to learn a great deal not only about the men who surrounded her husband but of Richard himself.

  He was weak. That she had to accept. He was not the golden god she had believed him to be when he had welcomed her to England and she had been overawed by his beauty. He needed her. She realised that more each day. He leaned on her. It was for her to protect him. And she loved him more deeply for his weakness.

  Thomas of Woodstock came riding to Salisbury. News of the friar’s outburst and his accusation against John of Gaunt had reached him.

  Unceremoniously he burst into the King’s chamber.

  Thomas’s eyes were wild as he took his sword from its sheath and brandished it before the King. Those about Richard closed in on him and Thomas cried: ‘Who dares accuse my brother of treason, eh? Tell me this. Let that man stand forth and I will challenge him. Yea,’ his wild eyes were fixed on Richard. ‘No matter who he be. I will run him through.’

  Richard was astounded. That anyone should dare speak thus of him in his presence was an insult. It was something he had never expected could be possible, even from this uncle who had always treated him as though he were a boy.

  He opened his mouth to speak but he had always been a little in awe of Thomas of Woodstock. During his boyhood this big uncle had often lectured him on what he should do, and somehow the sight of him, red-faced, his eyes bulging, his sword in his hand, intimidated the King.

  De Vere said: ‘My lord Buckingham, this matter is over. The friar is dead. None of his accusations have been proved. The matter is at an end.’

  ‘It is not at an end my lord if calumnies are spread about my brother. And if they continue to be I shall be at hand to defend his good name.

  Woodstock bowed and left the chamber.

  Everyone who had witnessed the strange scene was astounded. The brothers had not been on such good terms. Buckingham still resented the fact that Lancaster had married his son Henry to the co-heiress of the Bohun estates.

  Why then was he so concerned with his brother’s reputation?

  There was one construction to be put on it and Richard declared to Robert de Vere and Anne that he knew what it was.

  ‘He loves to humiliate me. That is his motive. He wants to make me feel that I have not yet grown up and he wants to make other people believe it. I shall not forget this in a hurry,’ he added. ‘A plague on these uncles.’

  The people of Salisbury were not going to allow the friar Latemar to be forgotten in a hurry either.

  It was not long before he became a martyr.

  One man came running through the streets shouting: ‘I can see. I who was blind can see.’

  What had happened? Crowds gathered round him.

  ‘I touched the crate on which he was dragged through the streets. Leaves had begun to sprout from it. I touched them and lo, I could see.’

  It was like touching the hem of the holy garment.

  After that there was a crop of miracles. Lights were said to shine over the friar’s grave. There was constant talk of the astonishing cures which were performed there. No, the friar was not going to be forgotten.

  And if he was a martyr, which the miracles proved he was, then John of Gaunt was in truth plotting to murder the King, for martyrs always spoke the truth.

  Robert de Vere was very much aware of t
he feeling which had been raised against John of Gaunt. Of course he himself was equally unpopular. Favourites always were. He was surrounded by envy, simply because he knew how to amuse the King and delight him with his company.

  Richard doted on him and could deny him nothing. Robert must be watchful of Anne of course; but Anne was a wise woman; she loved the King and was in fact loved by him. She had to accept Robert and she did so with a very good grace. Just as, thought Robert slyly, he accepted her.

  Richard and he were friends, devoted friends, but they had their wives of course and both of them understood this friendship which made for a harmonious household.

  Richard could not do enough for Robert. When he had told him that he and Philippa could not really manage on their income, the King had laughed. He could remedy that. He could not allow his dear Robert to be poor. Robert was very soon the possessor of the town and castle of Colchester. He was also a member of the privy council and a knight of the Garter. Of course they were jealous of him. Robert expected jealousy from other nobles. But he had to be watchful in higher quarters.

  The King’s uncles did not like him. He had long been aware of John of Gaunt’s antipathy; now of course he had that of Thomas of Woodstock. When he had raged into the King’s chamber brandishing his sword he had, it was true, been brandishing it at Richard, but he was sending more than the occasional glance in Robert’s direction too.

  It was unfortunate that the plot against John of Gaunt had failed. The friar was an innocent man who had been trapped into being the betrayer of the ‘plot’. He had been a simple man and it had been easy to play subtly on his incredulity. Robert had banked on Richard’s losing his temper and acting on impulse as he so often did. Then John of Gaunt would have been taken away and executed before enquiries were made. It had happened like that more than once.

  But here he was with a failed plot and yet not entirely failed. Not while the miracles continued and they must make sure that there was no falling off of those for while they persisted feeling ran high against John of Gaunt.