‘But of course!’ cried the duchess, clasping her hand to her escaping hair. ‘You poor child – it is all those men, is it not? You have been surrounded by men – you poor, poor child!’
Margaret’s cousin was staring at her as though she were some curiosity from a travelling fair, then she said, ‘You may have one of my old gowns if you like, I will have it made down for you.’
‘But we will send for materials!’ the duchess said, and they began to talk together as if Margaret wasn’t there.
Margaret’s face burned with humiliation. She couldn’t bring herself to ask how long it might take for the new clothes to arrive, or how much they would cost. She wanted to go home.
‘The first feast is tonight,’ the duchess said. ‘But I believe I have just the thing.’
They ate in the great hall, course after course of meat – hare, pheasant and boar – served on silver platters and swimming in sauce. There was a whole pig, stuffed with swallows, and a swan shaped into a dragon, coloured green and gold and breathing actual smoke. A deer was brought in, roasted on a spit, but Margaret sat stricken in a blue velvet gown, unable to eat. The duchess leaned forward and asked if the food was not to her liking, and she protested that it was. Then the duke said that she needed some meat on her bones, like her cousin, and he turned to the older girl and slid his moist fingers round her neck, and kissed her fully on the lips, while the duchess smiled brightly in a different direction, and Margaret glanced down quickly at her plate, on which there was a pigeon breast, sinewy and veined; her throat closed as she looked at it and she knew she could never eat. The duke, releasing her cousin, said that what she needed was some ox-blood with her breakfast, and Margaret felt as though she might faint.
Then the duke, reddened by pork and wine, insisted on dancing with her, and after the first dance he bore down on her, leaning on her shoulders as though he would crush her, and leading her a little way away from the guests. Then he asked how she thought she would like her new husband, and without warning he wept and begged her to provide him with more grandchildren.
Margaret wondered what would happen if she pushed him away from her, hard.
To her relief, someone interrupted them. It was Henry Stafford.
‘My Lady Margaret has said that she will show me her son,’ he said.
The duke said he knew what they were up to, he had been just the same at their age, but she took Henry’s arm gratefully and he led her from the room.
A sliver of moonlight shone on her baby, on the tiny fists curled either side of his head, his pale face even whiter around the lips. He was a still, small, concentrated world on his own. She had to touch him – his cheek and the reddish down on his head – then she leaned over the cradle and lifted him out.
He stirred and his face creased, and he gave a little sigh but did not cry – he hardly ever cried. She held him close to her heart and wondered if he could hear it beating, and thought that so recently he had heard it beating inside her.
Henry stood close beside her, frowning into her baby’s face.
‘I wonder what it is like to be born,’ he said softly. ‘To be suddenly in a strange world – cold and bright.’
She didn’t answer, but adjusted her baby’s blanket.
‘It must be a fearful thing,’ he said, ‘and sad also, to be suddenly separate.’
She glanced up at him quickly, at his frowning face, at his eyes that looked as though they were working out some inscrutable problem. She understood, suddenly, that she was not a child to this man she would marry, as she had been to Edmund, an insignificant child, to be humoured or tolerated. She had been through the mystery of birth and he regarded her with a kind of awe, as if she were older, and very wise.
She showed him how to hold her baby, supporting his head. They sat together on the wooden seat, wondering at his tiny fingers and the little pulse beneath his hair. Slowly the feeling of unreality she’d had since coming to this household began to ebb. The man who would be her new husband did not touch her, but she could feel the heat of him through her dress, a plump, comforting presence. She felt the tension in her shoulders and her lips and the back of her neck begin to ease. She had not known there had been such tightness there.
The following week the materials arrived: pearly silks, spun lace, finest cotton for her chemise, a green silk for dancing in, a new woollen robe for travel. Margaret watched them being cut and shaped, almost as her new life was being cut and shaped before her, and the duchess and her cousin personally supervised her transformation. Her hairline and eyebrows were shaved so that her forehead stood out in a huge dome, then her hair was braided and pulled tightly back from her face, pulling the flesh of her forehead back even further so that she looked permanently, fashionably, surprised. Finally she was given a tall headdress, to add to her height, and then she stood in front of a bronze mirror, staring at someone she did not know.
She was not, nor ever would be, pretty. But that did not matter here, apparently. It did not matter to the duchess, or to her son – the man she had agreed to marry. She looked again at her new face. She would get used to it, as she would get used to her new life. It was like a mask, for a part she had to play.
Their stay was extended for several weeks. She learned to avoid the duke, who seemed permanently eager to bear down on her, but fortunately he was often out hunting or showing off his grandson. Her cousin’s son was a handsome little boy with brown-gold curls who was petted and made much of by the entire household. The duke had given him a tiny sword and loved to see him brandish it and swagger about, but Margaret considered him to be a bad-mannered and disagreeable infant, and she took care to keep her own son away from him.
She did not share a room with Betsy any more; she had requested a room of her own as soon as she had agreed to the betrothal. At mealtimes Betsy sat at the other end of the great table with the other servants, trying and failing to catch Margaret’s eye.
In April they travelled with the duke and duchess and a small household to the duke’s favourite residence of Maxstoke in Warwickshire. There, the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield granted a dispensation for the marriage between the Lady Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and Henry Stafford, second son of the Duke of Buckingham. This was important because Margaret’s grandfather and Henry’s grandmother were brother and sister.
And after that she returned with Jasper to Pembroke, for it had been agreed that they would not marry immediately; she would have her year of mourning.
By the end of that year the duke’s eldest son had died, and the whole household was in mourning. Against all expectations, William Herbert had been pardoned by the king. And Jasper had made peace with Gruffydd ap Nicholas, who had sworn loyalty to the crown. She heard also that John de la Pole had married one of the daughters of the Duke of York, and wondered what that meant for Lady Alice. But she had little time to wonder; she was preoccupied with other news.
She had inherited Bourne Castle from her grandmother Margaret Holland. The property was technically part of her mother’s estate in Lincolnshire, and close to her castle of Maxey. Margaret had not seen her mother for several years, but now it seemed she was anxious to accommodate the new couple and set them up in a household of their own, as her wedding present to them both.
Margaret did not look at Jasper when he delivered this news, she didn’t want to. When she looked at him she could only remember the pressure of his fingers on her wrist.
So she looked instead out of the window, where the sky was a blank grey yet the fields were filled with a damp yellow light. Her heart began beating faster, as though it might burst out of the cage of her chest.
‘It is not a large establishment,’ Jasper said, ‘there are only thirty servants. You can take your own attendants also, of course.’ He paused. ‘I hope you will still come and stay with me at Pembroke,’ he said, and Margaret knew he was thinking about his nephew. But she would be mistress, finally, of her own household. She would not have to live with Jasper. And
she would leave Wales. She never wanted to come back.
‘Perhaps you will visit us,’ she said to Jasper, and felt rather than saw the expression of anxiety deepen in his eyes. But this was the first time she had real reason to be grateful to her mother, and to God, who had finally answered her prayers.
In the next few days she made up her mind.
She sent for Betsy and received her in her room, waiting with a peculiar tension between her shoulders, a feeling that was almost, though not quite, fear.
Betsy hurried in and would have embraced Margaret immediately had she not stood up, moving swiftly away from her nurse.
‘I am to have my own household,’ she said.
‘I know it!’ said Betsy. ‘Oh, my precious, it’s a grand day for us.’ And she made a move again as though she would kiss her, and Margaret drew back.
Betsy hardly paused.
‘You will soon be as fine as your cousin – finer even – who knows when she will marry again – and you, my sweet pea, will have more heirs –’
‘That is not what the doctor said,’ Margaret interrupted, and her nurse faltered at the look on her face. She had not known that Margaret had heard what the doctor had said. Yet Betsy knew – Margaret could tell from her nurse’s reaction that she knew. Jasper had told her, no doubt.
But Betsy rallied. She told Margaret that she should pay no heed to what the doctor had said, none at all – did she not know someone herself who had lost her entire womb due to a curse, but then she had prayed at the tomb of St Margaret and the next year she had given birth to triplets.
Margaret nodded. ‘I will not be giving birth to triplets,’ she said. ‘We will have to hope that my husband does not mind too much having no heirs of his own.’ Her smile was bright and cold. Her nurse looked as though she would speak, then suddenly sat down on the bed.
‘Oh, my lady,’ she said, pressing one hand to her breast, ‘you can’t blame poor Betsy for wanting the best for her little Peg.’
There were tears in her eyes. Margaret turned away from her, but her heart was beating faster. ‘You did not consult me,’ she said. ‘You went behind my back …’
‘Oh, now what would you have said if I had consulted you?’ cried Betsy. ‘You were all for going into a convent. But Lord Jasper – he had other plans.’
‘And you helped him.’
Betsy wrung her hands. ‘What was I supposed to do? Neither of us knew what to do for the best, you being so ill, and surrounded by your enemies; your husband dead, your babe so new and feeble – he had to find a new husband for you. Either that or marry you himself.’
Margaret looked at her in horror.
‘Or let your enemies get their hands on you. The Duke of York – he could have had you for one of his own sons, or you could have been given straight to Lord Herbert – and then what? Would you have liked that any better?’
Margaret turned away again. All her life she had been persuaded by Betsy’s arguments.
‘So, you see, he had to act, lambkin, in your own best interests – and you were so sad and ill – he had to ask your old Betsy.’
Margaret shook her head. I will not listen, she told herself. And yet she did.
‘And it has all turned out for the best,’ Betsy said pleadingly, ‘hasn’t it, my chicken? You will have a new husband who loves you and loves your son, and we will all move together to a fine new house –’
‘Not all of us,’ Margaret said distantly.
‘Yes, all of us together. And I will help to look after your babe just as I looked after you when you were a tiny scrap.’
‘He has his nurse,’ Margaret said. ‘And I do not need one any more.’
‘Oh,’ Betsy said, ‘you will always need your Betsy.’
Margaret looked at her fully. ‘I am about to be married for the third time,’ she said. ‘I do not need a nurse.’
She could see then, and always, the look on Betsy’s face.
‘You will receive a generous pension,’ she said, and her voice, even to her own ears, sounded uneven. ‘I am sure that my Lord Jasper will take you wherever you wish to go.’
‘But I don’t wish to go anywhere,’ Betsy said, ‘except with you.’
‘You had better make the necessary arrangements.’
‘But, poppet,’ Betsy said, getting up, ‘you mustn’t send me away. What have I done other than take care of you? What have I done that was so wrong?’
Margaret moved her head impatiently, but her nurse appeared to misunderstand her and stepped forward in hope.
‘You can’t do without old Betsy,’ she said. ‘And I can’t do without you. All I want is to live with you and look after your baby, and love you both with all my heart!’
Margaret let out a long breath. ‘I have already told my Lord Jasper that you will be leaving my service. He will help to place you elsewhere if you wish. But if you want to retire he will help you to find a cottage.’ Her voice rose as her nurse made another movement towards her. ‘Our time together is done.’
And at last she saw that Betsy understood.
She expected noisy tears, but Betsy only looked at her with stricken eyes, then dropped a curtsy, but stumbled in the execution of it and almost fell. And Margaret, from long habit, held out her hand, and her nurse steadied herself and rose. She looked at Margaret’s hand in hers, then at her face, and said, ‘Oh, my lady – I hope you find others to love you as I have done – all your life –’ but she couldn’t go on. She left the room, weeping and bowed over like an old, old woman, and Margaret sank down on to the bed.
Treacherously, her body remembered the embrace of her nurse, the warm comfort of it, the stale and spicy smell.
Since infancy the world had come to her through Betsy’s eyes, magical and fearful, but now she was no longer a child. She had a child of her own, and would have her own household; she needed to see the world through her own eyes.
Even then she knew it was not likely that others would love her as Betsy had.
Two days later she set out for Maxstoke, leaving Betsy to make her own arrangements. She did not say goodbye to her nor look back, afraid of seeing another face at the window, watching her as she left.
The night before her wedding she could not stop crying over Edmund, great sobs that threatened to tear her apart. It was incredible to her that he should be dead, that he who had been so vivid, so alive, could be dead and gone. She sat up in bed finally, pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes. When she took them away she would see him. He would be looking at her from the shadows of the room with that half-smile on his face; as though it had been just another of his protracted absences or an elaborate joke.
What, marrying so soon? he would say.
The sense of unreality deepened as she walked into the church that morning wearing his presence around her like a veil or a shroud. She stood next to her new husband hardly seeing him. The words she had to say echoed strangely in her mind. This was, after all, the third time she had made her vows. And she was still only fourteen.
She reminded herself that he was a kind man, her new husband. He would not treat her as a child. He would not touch her if she didn’t want to be touched. And she was to have her own household, where she and her husband and her son would live.
But later, at Bourne Castle, she learned, to her great grief and distress, that Jasper had been awarded custody of her son.
PART IV: 1456–62
33
The Hanged Man
Now the government of the realm stood most by the queen and her council.
Brut Chronicle
[In 1456] John Helton, an apprentice at court and formerly of Gray’s Inn, was drawn, hanged and quartered for producing bills asserting that Prince Edward was not the queen’s son; however, before his death, he retracted all his statements.
John Benet’s Chronicle
It was at the queen’s insistence that the extreme penalty was applied –‘It is treason, is it not?’ – and at her insistence the little
prince was made to watch, despite the protests of his nurse.
‘He is so young.’
‘He is young,’ said the queen.
‘Your majesty –’
‘There are those in this country who do not think he should be heir to the throne, that he is not the king’s son. Now they are saying he is not my son either, but a changeling. He will need to know how to deal with such men.’
And so the little prince sat at her side while the apprentice John Helton was drawn on a hurdle towards them, then made to stand on a cart.
The mood of the crowd was by no means certain. It strained and roared like a great beast, some calling out curses, others singing ‘Deo Gracias’, as the cries of this man became less and less human.
Partway through she felt a certain light-headedness, as though the top of her head had lifted and she was spiralling up, outwards and upwards, towards the grey-white sky. There was a bitter fluid in her throat.
The little prince seemed to be straining forward, though in reality he had not moved. They both remained very still before the eyes of the crowd, as the man was cut down by the executioner, who made several incisions in the spine, then severed the legs at the hips. Finally he held the head aloft, and men came with buckets to wash away the blood.
At last there was nothing left of John Helton but a putrid smell that clung in the air.
Only then did the queen permit herself to hold a scented cloth to her face.
Afterwards the little prince became very excited. His face was flushed and he ran about his rooms, jabbing his tiny sword first at one person then another.
‘You shall die – and you – and you!’
Until his nurse took it from his hand and picked him up to restrain him.
‘I shall put him to bed,’ she said.
She did not look at the queen, but there was reproof in every lineament. And the queen sat back, very pale.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He should rest.’
The queen with such as were of her affinity [now] ruled the realm as she liked gathering riches innumerable. The officers of the realm … peeled the poor people and disinherited many heirs and did many wrongs … [and] the queen was defamed and slandered that he that was called prince was not the king’s son but a bastard born of adultery, wherefore she, dreading that he should not succeed his father in the crown of England, allied unto her the knights and squires of Cheshire … and made her son give a livery of swans to all the gentlemen of the county and to many other gentlemen of the land, trusting through her strength to make her son king … and making privy means to some of the lords of England to stir the king that he should resign the crown to her son, but she could not bring that purpose about.
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