I watch as they swing a great cannon on a sling and lower it into the hold of a ship. ‘What? What don’t you know?’
Her face is aghast, like when we left her in her marriage bed last night, and she whispered: ‘Annie, don’t go.’
‘What if it’s a trick?’ she asks in a voice so quiet that I have to put my head against hers to hear her. ‘What if it is a trick like they played on the sleeping king and the bad queen? You’re too young to remember but King Edward’s father and our father never challenged the sleeping king. They were never open rebels against him. They always said only that he should be better advised. And they led out the armies of England against him, always saying that he should be better advised. It’s what Father always says.’
‘And when they beat him in battle . . .’
‘Then they put him in the Tower and said that they would hold him forever,’ she finishes. ‘They took his crown from him although they always said they just wanted to help him rule. What if Father and George are planning to do that to King Edward? Just as Father and Edward did it to the sleeping king? What if Father has turned traitor to Edward and is going to put him in the Tower along with Henry?’
I think of the beautiful queen, so confident and smiling at her coronation feast, and imagine her imprisoned in the Tower instead of being the mistress of it, and dancing till dawn. ‘He can’t do that, they swore fealty,’ I say numbly. ‘We all did. We all said that Edward was the true king, the anointed king. We all kissed the queen’s hand. We said King Edward had a better claim to the throne than the sleeping king. We said he was the flower of York, and we would all walk in the sweet garden of England. And we danced at her coronation when she looked so beautiful and they were so happy. Edward is the King of England: there can’t be another. She’s queen.’
Isabel shakes her head impatiently. ‘You think everything is so easy! You think everything is straightforward like that? We swore fealty when Father thought that he would rule through King Edward. What if he now thinks he will rule through George? Through George and me?’
‘He will put you on the throne of England?’ I say incredulously. ‘You’re going to wear Her crown? You’re going to take Her place? Not waiting for Edward to die? Just taking everything?’
She does not look excited as she did when we used to play at queens. She looks aghast. She looks afraid. ‘Yes.’
CALAIS CASTLE, SUMMER 1469
Isabel’s new husband George, my father, and all the men that assembled as wedding guests, turn out to be a recruited force, sworn to loyalty to each other, ready to invade England, and they set sail, land in Kent, and march on the Midlands. Men pour out of the cities to join them, throw down their spades in the fields and run after Father’s army. He is still remembered by the people of England as the leader who freed the country from the curse of the sleeping king, he is beloved as the captain who holds the narrow seas and keeps both pirates and the French from our shores. And everyone believes him when he says that all he wants is to teach the young king how to rule, and free him from the command of his wife: another strong-minded woman, another bad queen that will curse England if the men give way to another female ruler.
The people of England learned to hate the bad queen, Margaret of Anjou. At the first mention of another woman, a strong-willed determined woman who is presuming on her position as the king’s wife to try to rule the kingdom, they turn out in a frenzy of offended male pride. My uncle George, whose post of Lord Chancellor was taken off him by the king and his wife, catches Edward on the road as he is riding to join his army, captures him and sends him under guard to our home: Warwick Castle. Father captures the queen’s own father and her brother as they ride away into Wales. He sends a special force to Grafton in Northampton and snatches the queen’s mother from her home. Events tumble after one another too fast for the king. Father hunts down the Rivers family before they realise they are prey. This is the end of the king’s power, this is the end of the bad councillors for the king. For certain, it is the end of the Rivers family. Of the queen’s extensive family, Father holds in his power three of them: her father, mother and brother.
Only slowly, with a growing dread, do we realise that this is not a threat from Father, to teach them a lesson. These are not kinsmen who have been taken for ransom in the ordinary way: this is a declaration of war on the Rivers. Father accuses the queen’s own father and her handsome young brother John of treason and orders their execution. Without rule of law, without a proper trial, he has them brought from Chepstow to our stronghold, Coventry, and executed without chance of appeal, without a chance of a pardon, outside the hard grey walls. The handsome young man, married to a woman old enough to be his grandmother, dies before his ancient bride, his head on a block, his dark curls gripped by the executioner. Lord Rivers puts his head down in his son’s blood. The queen, stricken with grief, in terror for herself, separated from her husband, fearing that she will be an orphan, barricades herself and her little girls into the Tower of London and sends for her mother.
She can’t reach her. The queen’s mother, who planned the table for the children at the coronation dinner and smiled at me, is in my father’s power at Warwick Castle. Father creates a courtroom to have her tried and brings witnesses against her. One after another they come with reports of lights burning in her still-room at night, of her whispering to the river which runs near her home, of rumours that she could hear voices and that when one of her family was going to die she was warned by singing, spectral singing from the night sky.
Finally they search her home at Grafton and bring in the tools of necromancy: two little figures made of lead, bound together in a devilish union with wire of gold. Clearly one is meant to be the king, the other Jacquetta’s daughter, Elizabeth Woodville. Their secret marriage was brought about by witchcraft, and King Edward, who has acted like a madman since he first set eyes on the Northampton widow, was all this time under an enchantment. The queen’s mother is a witch who brought about the marriage by magic, and the queen herself is the daughter of a witch and half-witch herself. Clearly, Father will obey the injunction in the Bible that says Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, and put her to death, doing God’s work and his own.
He writes all this to Mother, as we wait in Calais, and she reads it in her measured voice as the ladies sit around and forget to sew, open-mouthed with shock. Of course, I want Midnight to ride with his high-stepping stride over all the kingdom; but I cannot rejoice at the thought of that young man John putting his handsome head on the block. I remember how he looked like a lamb going to the slaughter at the coronation feast when they made him go handfast with his elderly bride – but now he is a slaughtered lamb indeed and he has died before the old lady. My father rebels against the rules of nature as well as those of kingship. The queen’s mother, Jacquetta, who smiled at me so kindly on the night of the coronation feast, has been widowed by my father’s executioner. I remember her walking into dinner with her hand in her husband’s arm, their pride and joy shining from them like candlelight. Yet my father has killed her boy, and her husband too. The queen herself is fatherless; is she to lose her mother as well? Is Father going to burn Jacquetta, Lady Rivers?
‘She is our enemy,’ Isabel says reasonably. ‘I know that the queen is beautiful and she seemed very pleasant, but her family are grasping and bad advisors, and Father will have to destroy them. They are our enemy now. You must think of them as the enemy now.’
‘I do,’ I say; but I think of her in her white gown and her high headdress and her veil of lace, and I know that I don’t.
For most of the summer we are in a state of constant excitement as the reports come from England that Edward, the one-time king, is living as our forced guest at Warwick Castle, that Father is ruling the realm through him, and the reputations of all of the Rivers are being destroyed. Father tells everyone that the evidence from the trial of the queen’s mother shows clearly that the royal marriage was brought about by sorcery, and the king has been
under an evil spell. Father has saved him, he is keeping him safe and he will kill the witch and break the spell.
My mother has waited in Calais for news before; we waited here when my father fought one brilliant battle after another to defeat the sleeping king. It is as if we are re-enacting those days of victory and Father is once again unstoppable. Now he has a second king in his keeping and he is going to put a new puppet on the throne. The French servants who come into the city of Calais tell us that the French call my father ‘the kingmaker’ and say that no-one can hold the throne of England without his permission.
‘The kingmaker,’ my mother murmurs, savouring the word. She smiles at her ladies, she even smiles at me. ‘Lord, what foolish things people do say,’ she remarks.
Then a ship from England brings us a packet of letters and the captain comes to the castle, to see my mother in private, and tell her that the news is all over London that King Edward was born a bastard, not his father’s son but the misbegotten child of an English archer. Edward was never the heir of the House of York. He is base-born. He should never have been on the throne at all.
‘Are people really saying that Duchess Cecily lay with an archer?’ I ask out loud as one of the ladies whispers the gossip. The king’s mother, our great-aunt, is one of the most formidable ladies of the realm, and no-one but a fool would believe such a thing of her. ‘Duchess Cecily? With an archer?’
In one swift angry move, my mother rounds on me and boxes my ears with a ringing blow that sends my headdress flying across the room.
‘Out of my sight!’ she shouts in a rage. ‘And think before you dare to speak ill of your betters! Never say such a thing in my hearing again.’
I have to scuttle across the room to get my headdress. ‘My Lady Mother . . .’ I start to apologise.
‘Go to your room!’ she orders. ‘And then go to the priest for a penance for gossiping.’
I scurry out, clutching my headdress, and find Isabel in our bedroom.
‘What is it?’ she asks, seeing a red handprint across my cheek.
‘Lady Mother,’ I say shortly.
Isabel reaches into her sleeve and lends me her special wedding handkerchief to dry my eyes. ‘Here,’ she says gently. ‘Why did she box your ears? Come and sit here and I’ll comb your hair.’
I stifle my sobs and take my seat before the little silvered mirror, and Isabel takes the pins out of my hair and combs out the tangles with the ivory comb that her husband gave her after their one night of marriage.
‘What happened?’
‘I only said that I couldn’t believe that King Edward was a bastard foisted on his father by the duchess,’ I say defensively. ‘And even if I am beaten to death for saying it, I still can’t believe it. Our great-aunt? Duchess Cecily? Who would dare to say such a thing of her? She is such a great lady. Who would say such a thing against her? Won’t they get their tongue slit? What d’you think?’
‘I think it’s a lie,’ she says drily, as she twists my hair into a plait and pins it up on my head. ‘And that’s why you got your ears boxed. Mother was angry with you because it’s a lie that we are not to question. We are not to repeat it, but we’re not to challenge it either. It’s a lie that our men will be telling all over London, Calais too, and we are not to contradict it.’
I am utterly confused. ‘Why would our men say it? Why would we not forbid them to speak, as I am forbidden? Why would we allow such a lie? Why would anyone say that Duchess Cecily betrayed her own husband? Shamed herself?’
‘You think,’ she advises.
I sit staring at my own reflection, my brown hair shining with bronze lights where it is elegantly plaited by Isabel, my young face creased in a frown. Isabel waits for me to follow the tortuous path of my father’s plotting. ‘Father is allowing the men to repeat this lie?’
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Because if Edward is illegitimate, then George is the true heir,’ I say eventually.
‘And so the true King of England,’ she says. ‘All roads lead to George taking the throne and me at his side and Father ruling us both forever. They call him the kingmaker. He made Edward, now he unmakes him. Next, he makes George.’ Her face in the mirror is grave.
‘I would have thought you would be pleased to be queen,’ I say tentatively. ‘And to have Father win the throne for you.’
‘When we were little girls playing at being queens we didn’t know the price that women pay. We know now. The queen before Elizabeth, the bad queen, Margaret of Anjou, is on her knees like a beggar asking for help from the King of France, her husband in the Tower, her son a prince with no principality. The present queen is hiding in the Tower, her father and brother dead on a scaffold, beheaded like common criminals, her mother awaits death by burning for witchcraft.’
‘Iz, please tell me that Father wouldn’t burn Jacquetta Woodville!’ I whisper.
‘He will,’ my sister says, her face grim. ‘Why else arrest and try her? When I wanted to be a queen I thought it was a story, like the legends, I thought it was all about beautiful dresses and handsome knights. Now I see that it is pitiless. It is a game of chess and Father has me as one of his pieces. Now he uses me on the board, next I may fall to one side and he won’t even think of me, as he brings another piece into play.’
‘Are you afraid?’ I whisper. ‘Are you afraid of falling off to one side?’
‘Yes,’ she says.
ENGLAND, AUTUMN 1469
My father has England in his grip. Victorious, he sends for us to share his triumph. My mother, Isabel and I take ship from Calais in the best vessel of my father’s great fleet, and arrive in London in great state as the women of the new royal house. The former queen Elizabeth skulks in the Tower, my father transfers the former King of England to our castle at Middleham and holds him there. In the absence of any other court we suddenly become the centre for London, for the kingdom. My mother and the king’s mother, Duchess Cecily, are seen everywhere together, with Isabel following behind them, the two great women of the realm and the bride who will be made queen at the next parliament.
This is our moment of triumph: the kingmaker deposing the king who has wearied him to install another, his son-in-law. It is my father who decides who will rule England. It is my father who makes and unmakes the Kings of England. And Isabel is with child, she too is doing just what Father requires, she too is being a kingmaker; she is making a King of England in her belly. Mother prays every morning before a statue of Our Lady that Isabel has a boy, who will be Prince of Wales, heir to the throne. We are a triumphant family blessed by God with fertility. The former king, Edward, has only three daughters, he has no son and heir, there is no prince in his nursery, there is no-one to bar George from the throne. His beautiful queen, so healthy and so fecund, can only make girls with him. But here we are, entering England a new royal family, a new queen for crowning, and she is with child. A wedding-night baby, conceived in the only night they were together! What a sign of grace! Who can doubt that it is our destiny to take the crown and for my father to see his grandson born a prince and live to be a king?
My father orders us to Warwick Castle, up the dry roads with the brightly coloured leaves whirling around us and the trees a treasury of gold and bronze and copper. The roads are dry and hard after the long summer; we leave a cloud of dust behind us. Isabel leads the way, resting in a litter drawn by white mules. She is not to live in London with her victorious husband. It does not matter if they are parted now since she is already with his child. She is to rest and prepare for her coronation. My father will call a parliament at York that will proclaim George Duke of Clarence as king and she will be queen. There will be a huge coronation in London. She will take the sceptre in her hand and lay it across her big belly, and her coronation gown is to be gathered thickly at the front to emphasise her pregnancy.
Chests of goods come north from the royal wardrobe. Isabel and I open them like children on New Year’s Day in the best chamber of the castle and spill
the contents all around the room, seeing the gold lacing and the encrusted stones sparkle in the firelight. ‘He’s done it,’ Isabel says breathlessly, looking at the boxes of furs that Father has sent her. ‘Father has taken her goods. These are her furs.’ She buries her face in the thick pelts, and gives a little awestruck gasp. ‘Smell them! They still smell of her perfume. He has taken her furs, he will have taken her perfume. I shall wear her perfume too. He says I am to have all her furs from the royal wardrobes to trim my gowns. He will send me her jewels, her brocades, her cloth-of-gold dresses to be fitted to me. He has done it.’
‘You can’t ever have doubted that he would?’ I ask, stroking the creamy ermine with the dark spots, which only kings and queens are allowed to wear. Isabel will have all her capes trimmed with it. ‘He defeated King Henry, and holds him prisoner. Now he has defeated King Edward and holds him. Sometimes I think of him, high on the back of his horse, Midnight, riding across the whole country, unbeatable.’
‘Two kings in prison, and a new one on the throne?’ Isabel questions, putting the furs aside. ‘How can it be? How shall the third king be safer than the other two? And what if Father turns against George as he turned against Edward? What if my father’s plans don’t just neglect me but come to oppose me? What if the kingmaker wants a new king after George?’
‘He won’t do that; there is no-one for him but you and George now, and you are carrying the prince, his grandson,’ I say certainly. ‘He’s done all this for you, Isabel. He will put you on the throne and keep you there, and then the next king of England will be a Neville. If he had done it for me I would be so happy. If he had done it for me I would have been the happiest girl in England.’
The Kingmaker's Daughter Page 5
