‘But the priest who performed the marriage may—’
‘Priests can be paid to say anything. The original evidence is needed, not anything concocted since. We are talking of removing a King of England from the throne, Cicely, and although I was plucked in battle, you will never catch Henry in battle again.’ He gave a half-laugh. ‘Now do you accept what I am saying?’
‘Yes.’ Her mind was clearing, as always it did when she used him in this way.
He smoothed her hair from her face. ‘Proof is everything, sweetheart. I am you, and can only say things you know but are not acknowledging. Do you feel better now?’ He put his fingers beneath her chin and made her look at him.
‘It is impossible not to feel better when I am with you.’
He smiled. ‘And in your heart you will always pray Leo will never answer the call of his lineage, and will thus remain out of danger from Henry, who will leave him alone until he senses him to be a very real Yorkist danger. You are right to think of sending the boy to Jack, who is the very best man in the world to care for him. I approve of your choice. But not until Leo is old enough to know why you send him away.’
‘Oh, Richard, all of it has made such a liar of me.’
He laughed. ‘And it all started with me. Because I made you so close to me, you started to lie to Bess and to your mother.’
‘So it’s all your fault.’ She laughed too. ‘But seriously, I seem to have been born to keep secrets.’
‘Yes, and others will insist upon confiding more, mm?’
She smiled a little ruefully. ‘Yes.’
‘It is good that you and Jack love so much, sweetheart. But I know that I will always be first in your heart, and that you accept I have gone now. I died knowing that we were the greatest of loves.’
‘Hold me tight, Richard,’ she whispered, and he did.
‘Cicely, your only course is the one you have already set out upon. Tell Henry you will support him, and thus purchase all the time that is needed for Leo to decide for himself what he wishes to do. When he is of age, there is nothing you, his mother, can say or do to prevent him. Protect him now, but accept that his future is his own.’
His lips found hers in a loving kiss that stirred every dear memory, every sensation and every desire. The taste of mint was so poignant and beloved. Oh, to really make love with this beguiling man again. But it was all chaff before the wind, fleeting, imagined and already fading beyond her reach.
She tried to cling to him, but he was slipping away. ‘Richard!’
He did not answer, and she was alone in the room. But her mind was now as clear as the finest crystal, and she knew what to tell Henry.
Taking up her cloak, which lay over a chair close to the fire, she wrapped it around her naked body and went down through the house, where there was not a servant to be seen, because they had been charged to show the utmost discretion. As she went out into the cold, the wind snatched at her loose hair, but she felt warm and confident as she made her way towards the willow.
Henry did not hear her coming, and started as she appeared beside him. His glance was anxious. ‘Cariad?’
She moved in front of him and pressed close, so that his arms moved around her instinctively. ‘Henry, I will keep your secret and stay close to you,’ she said gently, her voice almost lost in the hurry and splash of the stream.
‘Oh, cariad…’ His voice was choked and she could feel how he shook with stifled tears. ‘Cariad, do … do you understand now why I had to tell you? Why I needed you to know everything?’
‘I think so.’
‘Neither of us wishes to face the inevitable future, sweetheart, but perhaps, until then, we can enjoy the present? And each other?’
He flung his cloak back, unfastened the dragon from his collar and pressed it into her hand. ‘There, now you know this Tudor dragon is your captive,’ he said, closing her fingers over it.
‘No, I do not, Henry Tudor, you only want me to think I have you thus.’
He smiled and bent his head to kiss her. No mint now, or thyme or even rosemary. Just cloves. And Henry Tudor.
Who knew what the future would bring, because she had not been as open and forthcoming with him as she promised. And how could she know if he had been completely truthful? One day, Leo would have to learn the devastating truth about his royal birth. What would happen then?
She could not help glancing up at the bedroom window, willing Richard to be there. He was. And it was so easy to imagine Jack there too. …
Her fingers closed tightly around the silver dragon, until it pressed against Henry’s emerald, and those precious Yorkist jewels, Richard’s ruby and Jack’s amethyst. In that hand she held a microcosm of England’s fate—plus her own and her son’s.
Author’s Note
History is fact. Historical fiction is fact with the addition of make-believe. My version of Cicely Plantagenet’s story is the latter, and should not be taken any other way. I am a storyteller, not a historian. So I must repeat that the love between Cicely and Richard III, John (Jack) de la Pole and Henry VII are my invention. As, of course, is Leo Kymbe. I have invented Mistress Kymbe and Mary, whose (equally fictitious) new love, Stephen Perrings, is also a fictional character. Edmund de la Pole is fact, although I doubt if he was the awful figure I have depicted. But … who knows? The same applies to Ann Plantagenet, who might have been the perfect sister.
Throughout his reign, Henry VII went in fear of his life. His hounded early years had caused him to be secretive, suspicious, trusting of no one, and the years after his usurpation were spent endeavouring to keep a desperate hold on his stolen crown. The attempts to poison him described in this story, and his queen’s guilt, are not true. Nor, to my knowledge, is/was there any such thing as Russian powder. It is meant to suggest a blend of arsenic and something cyanidic that could have existed in the fifteenth century. Henry’s marriage to Elizabeth of York may have been harmonious, but he was described at the time as ‘unuxorious’. I have chosen to take this latter view.
Jack de la Pole died at the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487. His last resting place is not known, but the story of the willow stave through the heart is a strong tradition in the area. This may, of course, have been a friendly act by his supporters, because the willow would grow, and the tree would ‘always’ mark the place of his burial. That tree has long gone, of course. But he is still there, I’m sure. His demise in battle being fact, it is obvious that he cannot have survived to be included in this book.
The connection between the factual merchant John Pasmer and the equally factual Welles London residence, Pasmer’s Place, is (I think) a reasonable supposition, but his involvement with the Yorkist rebels is my storytelling, as is the fire at St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe.
Jon (John) Welles and Sir Humphrey Talbot are wronged by being saddled with the crimes of regicide and attempted regicide. Jon was loyal to Henry, his half-nephew, throughout his life, or so it appears. Nor can I justifiably make Humphrey a Yorkist supporter who made an attempt on Henry’s life. The poem (from Anciennes chroniques de Flandres) has been associated with Humphrey, although whether he actually wrote it, or to whom it may have been dedicated, is not known to me. He was of a religious disposition and went on pilgrimages, dying at St Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai. His residence in Flemyng Court is fictitious.
I cannot imagine he enjoyed seeing his sister Eleanor thrown to the wolves by Edward IV, who almost certainly did marry and desert her. Richard III believed she was his brother’s wife, and thus she became the reason for Edward’s children being illegitimate. And was why Richard became king. But then Henry VII threw her to the wolves again, because he needed Bess to be legitimate. Unfortunately for him, legitimizing her legitimized her siblings too, thus giving her brothers a much stronger right to the throne than Henry himself. Catch-22. Henry’s constant dread of their return seems to me to prove that he did not believe they had been murdered by Richard III.
Now to the matter of Henry�
��s ‘bigamy’ and fathering of Roland de Vielleville (de Velville, de Cosquer, du Coskäer and various other spellings). It is often said that there is no smoke without fire, which may indeed be the case where Roland is concerned. The rumours were strong, and there seemed no particular reason for Henry to show interest in him. Henry did not acknowledge Roland, which leads me to deduce that either the boy was not his son, or that there was some very good reason for keeping the fact a secret. Henry VII’s dynastic marriage was vital to his retention of the crown.
Henry had spent half his life in Brittany. That he would have had lovers is obvious, and that he had at least one illegitimate child is not beyond belief. That he actually married while there is my fiction and so, therefore, is Tiphaine de Rieux and her husband Briand du Coskäer. But Jean IV de Rieux was a real person, and Marshal of Brittany. If Roland was Henry’s son, someone like Tiphaine must have existed. We just do not know the facts. Yet.
My assessment of Anne (Ann/Annie) Plantagenet’s disagreeable and calculating character is another of my flights of fancy. She may in fact have been a sweet young thing who would never say boo to a goose, but that would not be very interesting, would it?
There was a close friendship between Cicely and Henry’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, which might have arisen because Cicely was married to Jon Welles, the half-brother of whom Margaret was very fond.
I have tweaked names and their spelling in order to differentiate between characters of the same name, e.g. John of Gloucester, Jack de la Pole and Jon Welles. Having three Johns would be tiresome for the reader.
Throughout this book I have continued to show my support for Richard III, and make no apology for so doing. I still believe him to have been innocent of the crimes assigned to him by history. Edward IV relied heavily upon Richard, who was known for his fairness and good rule. He was an enlightened man, determined to advance justice for the people, and concerned that women should be treated well by their husbands. These are not the qualities of a monster. But he cannot have been an angel either, being a successful and courageous medieval prince who knew how to command armies and hack his way around battlefields. He was very well loved in the north, where he ruled with all the power relinquished to him by his brother the king. If he had then been left to get on with ruling, I believe he would have been very good for England.
Sandra Heath Wilson
Gloucester
September 2015
By the same author
Cicely’s King Richard
Cicely’s Second King
Cicely’s Lord Lincoln
© Sandra Heath Wilson 2015
ISBN 978-1-910208-42-7 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-910208-43-4 (mobi)
ISBN 978-1-910208-44-1 (pdf)
ISBN 978-1-910208-37-3 (print)
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Cicely's Sovereign Secret Page 33
