Wine, wine—and I will love thee to the death
And out beyond into the dream to come…
Emotion threatened to overwhelm her. She blinked back the tears that stood in her eyes. Shouts drifted up from the garden, and she looked down, grateful for the distraction. Eleven-year-old Harry was playing football in the snowy court. She gazed at him, thinking of her beloved Arthur. Ginger-haired and heavy-set, Harry was nothing like Arthur, or like her, or like any on her side, not even in temperament. From babyhood he had been a difficult child, wilful and calculating, with quicksilver moods that turned him from cherub to fanged adder in an instant. Sometimes she thought Harry hated her. At nine, he’d stolen on her like a fox on prey and surprised her studying Richard’s portrait. Startled, she’d cried out and dropped the miniature. Harry had picked it up and handed it back to her. A look had come into his eyes; a look which was often there now, when he turned his gaze on her. She shivered despite the sun. She didn’t know what to make of Harry. Yet Harry, to his credit, hadn’t told his father—maybe because they liked one another even less.
She opened the book, careful not to spill the few grains of red earth that came from the field of battle. Even that was dear to her. Gently she traced Richard’s inscription with the tip of her finger: Richard of Gloucester, Loyaulte me lie.
“Richard…” she murmured, touching all that was left of him. He had such beautiful handwriting: strong, clear, each letter elegantly formed. Good that he didn’t know that day at Bosworth Field how it would all end: his body despoiled; his memory vilified; his friends and those of his blood hunted down and murdered. Lovable young Edward, George’s poor son, had died for his Plantagenet blood, and so had Richard’s own sweet boy, Johnnie, who was a bastard and no threat to anyone, save another bastard. By the time Henry was done, there would be nothing left of the pure strain. Even those who had loved Richard were dead, with the possible exception of Francis. He had disappeared after the first rebellion and no one knew what became of him.
The early years had been hard on Henry, filled with unrest, but he had survived. He was a born survivor. Jack’s rebellion of 1487 had failed, along with the succession of others launched from Ireland and led by a certain Perkin Warbeck who claimed to be her brother, Richard of York.
She drew a sharp breath. Dear God, she didn’t want Warbeck to be Dickon! Not even though he was said to have the same drooping eyelid as little Dickon, the same face and lineaments of body as her father! Meg had received him as her nephew and backed his invasions for six long years, but then Meg would support a bowl of porridge if it made trouble for Henry. She’d never learned why her own mother, Bess, had thrown her support to that first rebellion when she’d had so much to lose. Henry had banished her to a nunnery where she was carefully watched, and there she had died seven years later, in poverty. During these years, other princes of Europe had stepped forward to uphold Warbeck’s claim. James of Scotland had even permitted Warbeck to marry into his royal family.
No, she refused to believe it was Dickon! She couldn’t bear the thought of Dickon dying a traitor’s death at Tyburn: of being hung on the gallows, drawn apart, and cut into sections while still alive. It was too horrible. A dizzy spell sent her swaying in her chair. She held a hand to her head until it passed.
Aye, Henry had made his throne secure, had kept it longer with his iron fist than Richard ever could with his tender heart. What Henry lacked as a warrior, he made up for with a slyness of mind that did honour to his mentor, King Louis of France. A line from Malory echoed in her mind: Catlike thro’ his own castle steals my Mark. He had learned much from Louis; he was much like Louis. He even wore the same hat: a flat affair with a peak in the front… Henry hadn’t wished to wed her, if the truth be known. He’d delayed their marriage as long as he could, in part to be sure she didn’t bear Richard’s child. Henry was like that. Full of fears and secret suspicions, cold as a Northumberland winter. Even after all these years, she still recalled her revulsion at the first touch of his body on hers; the feel of his sweaty skin; the smell of his offending breath. In time, her repugnance faded, reduced to near indifference by familiarity. She was grateful for that small mercy.
She flipped to the back of the book where she had hidden Richard’s miniature portrait… Dark hair, wide sensitive mouth, strong square jaw. Eyes looking into the distance: earnest eyes, filled with terrible sadness. His last words to her echoed in the dark stillness of her mind: You’ll change! You’ll forget me! He had been wrong. She had neither changed nor forgotten. Nothing could remove him from her heart. Not time; not life. She would never forget a detail of his face.
She set down the miniature and drew the book to her. She remembered herself at eighteen, after Richard’s death at Bosworth, removing a pen from a sand cup, dipping it carefully into the ink and opening the flyleaf. San Removyr, she had written beneath his inscription. It was her motto, used only once in her life, when she was neither princess nor queen. Without changing. Only he would understand. She brought his portrait to her lips, implanted a kiss. It was said that he’d dreamed of triumph that last night before battle, but his triumph had not been of this world. She lifted her face to the bleak winter sky. “Richard, if you have been greatly hated, you have also been deeply loved—”
The sudden constriction in her chest stopped her breath. Oh, God, she couldn’t faint! She had to hide his portrait! She rose heavily and struggled to her coffer, each step dragging forth with pain. She located the secret compartment and slipped the book into it. There, the portrait was safe! She locked the chest, hung the key around her neck, pushed it deep into her bodice, her heart racing. Sagging against the coffer, she drew ragged breaths. Something was terribly wrong with her sight. She rubbed her eyes, looked down at her skirts.
A thick pool of bright red blood swam at her feet.
~*~
Elizabeth’s body felt as heavy as marble. She couldn’t move any part of it: not her hands, feet, or even her eyelids. There was no pain, but breathing was slow and difficult. Though she could hear voices and recognise them, everything seemed far away, as if from another world with which she no longer had a connection. A flurry of sounds dimly penetrated her consciousness: footsteps, a medley of hushed voices, the rustle of fabric permeated by a stale odour. She held her breath. Someone leaned over and she heard them murmur, “My lady, ’tis the King.”
A wild joy erupted in her breast, filling her cold body with the heat of sunshine and an ineffable, inexplicable lightness. Her eyes opened, her head lifted, and a wide smile came to her lips; it seemed to her that she could even raise her arms.
“Richard!” she cried.
In the motion of bending down to kiss her cheek, Henry Tudor stiffened and his face twisted in disgust.
“I am too late, I see.”
A sobbing lady-in-waiting stepped forward and closed Elizabeth’s eyes.
~ * ~
Afterword
Richard’s bloody body, naked and with a felon’s halter around the neck, was slung contemptuously across the back of a horse. As it was borne across the west bridge of the Soar, the head was carelessly battered against the stone parapet, as the wise-woman had prophesied. For two days the body lay exposed to view in the house of the Grey Friars close to the river, then it was rolled into a grave without stone or epitaph. At the dissolution of the monasteries, his grave was despoiled and his bones thrown into the River Soar.
Henry Tudor came to London in a litter, peering at his subjects from behind the curtains. By dating his reign from the day before the battle, he was able to attaint and hang for treason the men who had fought for Richard, including a Brecher father and son whose bravery had been noted by the enemy.
Francis, Viscount Lovell, was offered, and rejected, all of Henry Tudor’s overtures of pardon, including a role in Tudor’s coronation. With an army of Irish foot soldiers and German mercenaries, he and Lincoln invaded England in 1487 and almost snatched victory at the Battle of Stoke. He disappeared after
the battle and was last seen riding his horse across the River Trent. It was thought that he had drowned. In 1708 a secret underground chamber was discovered at Minster Lovell and the skeleton of a man was found seated at a table on which there were set a candle, paper, and a pen. All dissolved into dust as the door opened. It is now generally accepted that he was given refuge by a trusted servant and died of starvation as a result of the old man’s own death. However, the position of Francis’ body does not support this theory. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to remain upright in the final stages of death by starvation. For this reason it is possible Francis died more mercifully, of wounds sustained in the battle.
John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln (Jack), was noted by his enemies to have fought with great valour and skill at the Battle of Stoke, as did the German mercenaries who died with him to the last man. His Irish supporters, who composed half his army, likewise fought fiercely, but poorly clad and equipped only with clubs and scythes, they “fell like beasts before the enemy’s armour and swords.” In 1501, when Henry Tudor began to exterminate those with Plantagenet blood, Lincoln’s younger brother, Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, fled to the Continent. Tudor managed to get him back, and Henry VIII executed him. A third brother, William de la Pole, died in the Tower. The youngest brother, Richard, sought refuge in France, where he came to be known as the last “White Rose.”
Margaret Plantagenet. George’s daughter married into the Pole family. When her son fled to France to escape Henry VIII and refused to return, Henry had her executed in her son’s place. By all accounts she died barbarically. It is said that she fled from the executioner and had to be chased down at Tower Green. It took five blows of the axe to behead her. She was sixty-eight. She was later regarded by Catholics as a martyr and was beatified in 1886 by Pope Leo XIII.
Edward, Earl of Warwick. George’s tragic son was picked up from Sheriff Hutton immediately after Bosworth and taken to the Tower. He was executed by Henry VII on a pretext of treason in 1499, along with Perkin Warbeck. He was twenty-four.
John of Gloucester. Henry Tudor granted him a small pension, but just before Stoke, he was picked up for receiving a letter from Ireland. He disappeared into the Tower and was never heard from again.
Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. The North never forgot Percy’s gross betrayal of Richard. Four years after Bosworth, while travelling near York to collect ever-higher taxes for Henry Tudor, he was pulled from his horse and murdered. His retainers watched.
Sir William Stanley. After the Battle of Bosworth, William Stanley retrieved Richard’s battered crown from a thorn bush and crowned Henry Tudor with it. Despite his critical intervention in the battle and this grand gesture, he was never trusted by Tudor, who blamed him for taking too long to come to his aid. In 1495 Tudor executed William Stanley for supporting Perkin Warbeck.
Lord Thomas Stanley. Henry Tudor gave Stanley the earldom of Derby, but never entrusted him with the power he had enjoyed under Richard and he faded from the scene. Stanley’s wife, Margaret Beaufort, soon abandoned his bed by taking a vow of chastity, and on one occasion Henry Tudor found an excuse to extract from his stepfather the lofty sum of six-thousand pounds in fines.
John Morton, Bishop of Ely, became one of Tudor’s most trusted and influential royal advisors and enjoyed enormous power. Tudor appointed him Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486 and secured him a cardinal’s hat in 1493. Despite all his achievements, his only claim to fame is for “Morton’s Fork,” a sophisticated argument that justified the extortion of taxes from both rich and poor for Henry Tudor.
Lady Margaret Beaufort died in 1509 wracked by pain and “praying and weeping many tears” in concern for her immortal soul. Her confessor, Cardinal John Fisher, was executed by her grandson Henry VIII in 1535, taking her secrets and her sins to the grave with him.
Bess Woodville. Though thrifty Henry Tudor did not restore Bess’ property after Bosworth, he did grant her the pomp and privileges of a Queen Dowager. With the birth of her grandson Arthur in September 1486, she enjoyed a proud position at Tudor’s court as the ancestress of kings. Just before Lincoln’s rebellion in 1487, her situation changed abruptly. Stripped of her few possessions, she was thrown into confinement at the nunnery of Bermondsey Abbey. For the rest of her life, it was considered dangerous to even attempt to see or talk with her. The general belief is that she was detected aiding the cause of the rebellion.
She died five years later, impoverished and bemoaning the fact that she had nothing to leave her daughters but her blessing, and “small stuff and goods.” Her wood coffin was conveyed to Windsor by boat at night and she was buried with only three distant relatives present, “no ringing of bells,” and so few candles that a disappointed sightseer who witnessed the event commented upon it in his journal. Though her son Dorset and three of her five daughters did visit her privately at the chapel two days later, the funeral service that followed their departure was done cheaply and shabbily. No royalty attended.
The Marquess of Dorset was sent to the Tower at the same time that his mother was taken to Bermondsey Abbey. Released after the Battle of Stoke in 1487, he made sure he never incurred Henry Tudor’s displeasure again. He died in 1501. The ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day queen, was his great-granddaughter.
Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells (Book Two, The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny) was incarcerated immediately after Bosworth. He was pardoned by Tudor’s parliament and arrested again after he threw his support to Lincoln’s rebellion. He died in prison in 1491.
Sir James Tyrell didn’t participate at Bosworth because Richard left him in charge of Calais. He retained this position under Tudor until he gave hospitality to the Earl of Lincoln’s two brothers, the Duke of Suffolk and Richard de la Pole, on their way to Burgundy. Hesitant to return to England, Tyrell was given a safe conduct by Henry Tudor but was arrested as soon as he came aboard ship. He disappeared into the Tower and was beheaded on Tower Green in 1502. In 1504, Henry Tudor gave out the story that Tyrell had murdered the princes, but he produced no evidence.
Sir Edward Brampton remained true to the House of York, settled in Bruges after he fled England, and became a merchant. Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy knew him well. In Perkin Warbeck’s confession, extracted under torture, Warbeck states that he went to Portugal with Lady Brampton, possibly in an effort to shield Sir Edward Brampton. Elsewhere Warbeck states that he was the son of a Jean Warbeck, a “converted Jew” and merchant.
Anne, Countess of Warwick. In December 1487, Henry Tudor restored her lands so that she could legally sign them over to him. She fought in the courts for Middleham Castle, and won, but Tudor never returned the property. She died in 1492 at the age of sixty-six.
Cecily, Duchess of York, lived to be eighty years old and died in 1495 at Berkhamptsted, a virtual nun. She was buried in Fotheringhay Castle beside her husband and son, Edmund.
Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, dedicated the rest of her life to supporting and fomenting rebellions against Henry Tudor.
John Sponer. The day after Bosworth, John Sponer brought the city of York news of Richard’s overthrow. To the mayor and aldermen hastily assembled in the council chamber, “It was showed by John Sponer that good King Richard, late mercifully reigning upon us, was piteously slain and murdered, to the great heaviness of this City.”
This is Richard’s epitaph, written at great personal risk by the men who knew him best.
~ * ~
Author’s Note
This book is historical fiction based on real people of the period and real events. Though details that cannot be historically verified are the product of my imagination, no fictional characters have been invented and, with the exceptions noted below, I have adhered to historical facts when these are known. (1) Time, place, and character have not been manipulated for convenience, and the actual words used by the historical figures represented here have been integrated into the story whenever possible. However, as there is much that remains unknown
about this period of history, I have connected the dots and filled in the blanks, and the interpretation of events is mine. By the use of handwriting analysis, noted graphoanalysist Florence Graving provided invaluable insights for me into the characters of these major historical figures whenever their handwriting samples were extant.
I first became interested in Richard III when I saw his portrait at the National Portrait Gallery, London. (That portrait is reproduced as the cover of book two of this series: The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny.) His noble features and gentle expression gave the lie to Shakespeare’s description of him as an ugly hunchback, and the more I read about Richard III, the more difficult it became to reconcile the actions of his life with his reputation in history as an evil villain. To the contrary, his life brimmed with honourable actions that spoke of idealism and faith in God.
My research on this period took ten years. I visited university libraries across the nation from Stanford University and Berkeley on the west coast to Harvard and Boston College on the east, and I went north of the border to my alma mater, the University of Toronto. In England, I was honoured to be granted privileges at the British Museum where I perused various documents, as well as books from Richard’s library, notably Tristan, which Elizabeth of York clearly read as a young woman at a time of crisis in her life when she was neither princess nor queen, since it bears an intriguing motto and her signature. A copy of Consolatione philosopiae by Boethius also carries notations by her in the margins, and is inscribed on the flyleaf with a fascinating combination of Richard’s motto, Loyalte Me Lye, and Elizabeth of York’s first name, both in her handwriting. To further my research, I visited Ricardian sites in both England and Bruges numerous times, and interviewed several notable Ricardian authorities, including Peter Hammond and Bertram Fields.
For the ease of the modern reader, the quotations used come from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, not from Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, written in Richard’s lifetime. I have followed Richard’s itinerary as king. (2) Dates given are correct, even as to the day of the week. There was indeed an eclipse of the sun on the day Anne died, and insofar as possible, I have checked the details I describe, such as the moon on the eve of Bosworth, which was a five-percent moon, barely two days old and therefore scarcely visible. (3) According to tradition, Richard did ride a white horse, despite the fact that the color white was commonly regarded as bringing bad luck. For me, this provided an important insight into his character.
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