At every stop on the way we hear fresh confused rumours. At Pontefract the people are saying that the coronation has been delayed because the councillors were in a treasonous conspiracy with the queen. In Nottingham, when we spend the night at the castle, people say she was going to put her brother Anthony Woodville on the throne, and many more say that she was going to make him Lord Protector. Outside Northampton I hear someone swear that the queen has sent all her children overseas to our sister-in-law Margaret in Flanders, because she is afraid that Henry Tudor will come and seize the throne.
Outside St Albans a pedlar rides beside me for a few miles and tells me that he heard from one of his most respectable customers that the queen is no queen at all but a witch who enchanted the king, and their children are not true heirs but were got by magic. He has a new ballad in his pack: the story of Melusina, the water-witch who pretended to be mortal to get children from her lord and then was revealed as a nixie, a water-sprite. It is pointless to listen to him lustily singing the ballad, and foolish to listen to rumours which merely fuel my fear of the queen’s malice, but I cannot stop myself. What is worse is that everyone in the country is doing the same – we are all listening to rumours and wondering what the queen will do. We are all praying that Richard will be able to prevent her putting her son on the throne, allowing her brother to command him, taking the country into war again.
As we ride through Barnet, where my father is still remembered fighting against this queen and her family, I turn aside to the little chapel that they have built at the battlefield and light a candle for him. Somewhere out there, under the ripening corn, are the bodies of his men who were buried where they lay, and somewhere out there is Midnight, the horse that gave his life in our service. Now I know that we are facing another battle, and this time my father’s son-in-law is – must be – the kingmaker.
BAYNARD’S CASTLE, LONDON, JUNE 1483
I am off my horse and up the stairs and into our apartments at a run and in a moment Richard’s arms are tight around me and we are clinging to each other as if we have survived a shipwreck. We hold each other as we did when we were little more than children and had run away together to be married. Once again I remember him as the only man who could keep me safe, as he holds me as if I am the only woman he has ever wanted.
‘I am so glad you are here,’ he says in my ear.
‘I am so glad you are safe,’ I reply.
We step back to look at each other as if we cannot believe that we have got through these dangerous days. ‘What’s happening?’ I ask.
He glances to see that the door is closed. ‘I’ve uncovered part of a plot,’ he says. ‘I swear that it reaches throughout London, but I have it by the tail at least. Edward’s mistress Elizabeth Shore has been playing the part of go-between between Elizabeth Woodville and the king’s friend William Hastings.’
‘But I thought it was Hastings who sent for you?’ I interrupt. ‘I thought he wanted the prince to be taken from the Rivers’ keeping? I thought he warned you to come quickly?’
‘He did. When I first came to London, he told me that he feared the power of the Rivers. Now he has turned his coat. I don’t know how she has managed to get hold of him but she has enchanted him as she does everyone. At any rate, I know of it in time. She has created a ring of plotters against my brother’s last words and against me. They are Hastings, perhaps Archbishop Rotherham, certainly Bishop Morton and perhaps Thomas, Lord Stanley.’
‘Margaret Beaufort’s husband?’
He nods. This is bad news for us, since Lord Stanley is famous for always being on the winning side; if he is against us, then our chances are not good.
‘They don’t want me to crown the boy and serve as his chief councillor. They want him in their keeping – not mine. They want to get him away from me, restore the power of the Rivers, and arrest me for treason. Then they’ll crown him, or declare a regency with Anthony Woodville as Lord Protector. The boy has become a prize. The little prince has become a pawn.’
I shake my head. ‘What will you do?’
He smiles grimly. ‘Why, I shall arrest them for treason. Plotting against the Lord Protector is treason, just as if I were king. I am already holding Anthony Woodville and Richard Grey. I shall arrest Hastings and the bishops also, I shall arrest Thomas, Lord Stanley.’
There is a tap at the door and my ladies come in with my chests of clothes. ‘Not in here,’ my husband orders them. ‘Her Grace and I will sleep in the rooms at the back of the house.’
They curtsey and go out again. ‘Why are we not in our usual rooms?’ I ask. We normally have the beautiful rooms that overlook the river.
‘It’s safer at the back of the house,’ he says. ‘The queen’s brother has taken the fleet to sea. If he sails up the Thames and bombards us, we could take a direct hit. This house has never been fortified – but who would have thought that we would face an attack from the river by our own fleet?’
I look out of the wide windows at the view I love, of the river and the ships, the ferries, the little rowing boats, the barges and the scows all going by at peace. ‘The queen’s brother might bombard us? From our river, the Thames? In our own house?’
He nods. ‘This is a time of wonders,’ he says. ‘I wake every morning and try to puzzle out what new hell she is devising.’
‘Who is with us?’ It is the question that my father would always ask.
‘Buckingham has emerged as a true friend; he hates the wife that they forced on him and all the Rivers family. He commands a fortune and many men. I can also count on all of my men from the North of course; John Howard; my personal friends; my Lady Mother’s affinity; your side of the family, of course, so all the Nevilles . . .’
I am listening intently. ‘It’s not enough,’ I say. ‘And mostly based in the North. She can call out the royal household, and all her own family that she has put in such great positions. She can call on help from Burgundy, from her kinsmen in Europe. Perhaps she has made an alliance with the King of France already? France would back her rather than you, thinking they have a greater advantage to make trouble with a woman in power. And as soon as they know you are in London, the Scots will take the chance to rise.’
He nods. ‘I know. But I have the prince in my keeping,’ he says. ‘That is my master card. Remember how it was with the old king Henry? If you hold the king then there is really no argument. You have the power.’
‘Unless you simply crown another king,’ I remind him. ‘That’s what my father did with your brother. He held Henry; but he crowned Edward. What if she puts her other boy on the throne? Even though you hold the true heir?’
‘I know. I have to get her second son into my keeping too. I have to hold anyone who might claim to be king.’
Richard’s mother and I sit together for company in the back rooms of Baynard’s Castle. The nagging noise of the busy streets drifts through the open windows, the stink of London comes in on the hot air, but Richard has asked us to stay away from the cool gardens that lead down to the river, and never to go near the riverside windows. We may not go out into the streets without an armed guard. He does not know if the Rivers have hired assassins against us. The duchess is pale with anxiety; she has some sewing in her hands but she works at random, picking it up and putting it down again at the least noise from the streets outside the window.
‘I wish to God he would put her to death,’ she says suddenly. ‘Make an end of her. Her and all her ill-gotten children.’
I am silent. It is so near to my own thoughts that I hardly dare to agree.
‘We have not had one peaceful or happy day since she enchanted my son Edward,’ she says. ‘He lost the love of your father for her, he lost the chance of an honourable marriage that would have brought peace between us and France. He threw away the honour of his family by bringing her sturdy brood into our house, and now she will put one of her changeling sons on our throne. She told him to kill George – I know it, I was there as she advised him. Ed
ward would never have decided on the death sentence on his own. It was her spy who killed your sister. And now she plots the death of my last living son, Richard. The day that he falls because of her enchantment she will have taken every single one of my sons.’
I nod. I dare not say anything out loud.
‘Richard is ill,’ she mutters. ‘I swear it is her doing. He says that his shoulder aches and he cannot sleep. What if she is tightening a rope around his heart? We should warn her that if she harms so much as one hair of his head we will kill her boy.’
‘She has two boys,’ I say. ‘She has two chances at the throne. All we would do by killing Prince Edward would be to give the throne to Prince Richard.’
She glances at me in surprise. She did not know I was so hardened. But she did not realise that I watched my sister scream in pain, trying to deliver a baby in a witch’s wind, and die from a witch’s poison. If I ever had a tender heart it has been broken and frightened too often. I too have a son to defend, I have his little cousins. I have a husband who walks up and down the bedroom at night, clutching his sword arm as the pain wakes him from sleep.
‘Richard will have to get the other boy into his keeping,’ she says. ‘We have to hold both the Rivers heirs.’
That evening Richard comes in and greets me and his mother abstractedly. We go through the great hall to dine at the high table and Richard nods grimly as his men cheer him to his place. Everyone knows we are in danger; we feel like a house under siege. When he leans on his right arm as he goes to sit at his place it gives way beneath him and he stumbles and clutches at his shoulder.
‘What is it?’ I whisper urgently.
‘My arm,’ he says. ‘I am losing the strength in it. She is working on me. I know it.’
I hide my fear and smile out over the hall. There will be people here who will report to the queen, hiding in the shadowy walls of sanctuary. They will tell her that her enemy is vulnerable. She is not far away, just down the river in the gloomy chambers below the Abbey of Westminster. I can almost feel her presence in the hall: like a cold diseased breath.
Richard dips his hands in the silver bowl that is presented to him and wipes his hands on the linen cloth. The servers bring out the food from the kitchen, and take the dishes round to all the tables.
‘A bad business today,’ Richard says quietly to me. From the other side his mother leans forwards to listen. ‘I had proof of the plot that I suspected, between Hastings and the queen. His whore was go-between. Morton was in it too. I accused them in council and arrested them.’
‘Well done,’ his mother says at once.
‘Will you have them tried?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘No,’ he says shortly. ‘There was no time. These are the fortunes of war. I had Hastings beheaded at the Tower. Morton I have put in the care of Henry Stafford the Duke of Buckingham. Rotherham and Thomas, Lord Stanley I will hold under suspicion. I have had their homes searched for evidence, I will execute them if I find that they are plotting against me.’
I say not one word as a server offers us a fricassee of chicken. When he has moved on I whisper: ‘Beheaded? William Hastings? Without trial? Just like that?’
His mother flares at me. ‘Just like that!’ she repeats. ‘Why not just like that? You think that the queen demanded a fair trial for my son? You think that George had a fair trial when she called for his death?’
‘No,’ I say, acknowledging the truth of what she says.
‘Well, anyway, it’s done,’ Richard says, breaking into a loaf of white bread. ‘I could not put the prince on the throne with Hastings in league with the queen against me. As soon as he was crowned king and free to choose his advisors they would have taken him from me and put my death warrant before him. He would have signed it too. It is clear to me when I speak to him that he is utterly their boy, he is completely at their beck and call. I shall have to have Anthony Woodville, Richard Grey and Thomas Vaughan, their kinsman, executed too. They would all command the prince against me. When they are dead I will be safe.’ He looks at my aghast face. ‘This is the only way I can crown him,’ he says. ‘I have to destroy his mother’s affinity. I have to make him a king with only one councillor – myself. When they are dead I have to face only her – the plot is broken.’
‘You have to wade through the blood of innocent men,’ I say flatly.
He meets my eyes without wavering. ‘To get him on the throne,’ he says. ‘To make him a good king and not their cat’s-paw: yes, yes I do.’
In her dark sanctuary the queen makes her spells and whispers incantations against us. I know that she does. I can almost feel her ill-will pressing like river mist against the bolted windows of the back rooms of Baynard’s Castle. I hear from my ladies in waiting that the queen has surrendered her second son into the care of her friend and kinsman Cardinal Bourchier. The cardinal swore to her that the boy would be safe, and took the boy Richard from her to join his brother Edward in the royal rooms in the Tower to prepare for the coronation.
I cannot believe that it is going ahead. Even if we hold the boys in our keeping, even if we take them to Middleham Castle and treat them as our own children, the prince is not an ordinary child. He can never be treated as an ordinary ward. He is a boy of twelve years old raised to be a king. He adores his mother and will never betray her. He has been educated and schooled and advised by his uncle Anthony Woodville; he will never transfer his love and loyalty to us, we are strangers to him, they may have told him we are his enemies. They have held him in their thrall from his babyhood, he is absolutely the child of their making, nothing can change that now. She has won him from us, his true family, just as she won her husband from his brothers. Richard is going to crown a boy who will grow up to be his deadliest enemy – however kindly we treat him. Richard is going to make Elizabeth Woodville the mother to the King of England. She is going to take my father’s title of ‘the kingmaker’. There is no doubt in my mind that she will do just as my father would have done: bide her time and then slowly eliminate all rivals.
‘What else can I do?’ Richard demands of me. ‘What else can I do but crown the boy who has been raised to be my enemy? He is my brother’s son, he is my nephew. Even if I think he has been raised to be my enemy, what else, in honour, can I do?’
His mother at the fireside raises her head to listen. I feel her dark blue gaze on me. This is a woman who stood in the centre of Ludlow and waited for the riotous bad queen’s army to burst through the gates. This is not a woman who has much fear. She nods at me as if to give me permission to say the one thing, the obvious thing.
‘You had better take the throne,’ I say simply.
Richard looks at me. His mother smiles, and lays aside her sewing work. There has not been a good stitch put in it for days.
‘Do as your brother did,’ I say. ‘Not once but twice. He took the throne from Henry in battle not once but twice, and Henry had a far better right to it than the Rivers boy. The boy is not even crowned, not even ordained. He is nothing but one claimant to the throne and you are another. He may be the king’s son but he is a boy. He may not even be his legitimate son, but a bastard, one of many. You are the king’s brother, and a man, and ready to rule. Take the throne from him. It’s the safest thing for England, it’s the best thing for your family, it’s the best thing for you.’ I feel my heart suddenly pulse with ambition, my father’s ambition – that I should be Queen of England after all.
‘Edward appointed me as Lord Protector, not as his heir,’ Richard says drily.
‘He never knew the nature of the queen,’ I say passionately. ‘He went to his grave under her spell. He was her dupe.’
‘The boy is not even Edward’s heir,’ his mother suddenly interjects.
Richard holds up his hand to stop her. ‘Anne doesn’t know of this.’
‘Time she did,’ she says briskly. She turns to me. ‘Edward was married to a lady, a kinswoman of yours: Eleanor Butler. Did you know?’
‘
I knew she was . . .’ I look for words. ‘A favourite.’
‘Not just his whore, they were married in secret,’ the duchess says bluntly. ‘Just the same trick as he played on Elizabeth Woodville. He promised marriage, went through a form of words with some hedge priest . . .’
‘Hardly a hedge priest,’ Richard interrupts from his place, glowering into the fire, one hand resting on the chimney breast. ‘He had Bishop Stillington perform the service with Eleanor Butler.’
His mother shrugs away the objection. ‘So that marriage was valid. It was a priest with no name and perhaps no calling with the Woodville woman. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was false. It was bigamy.’
‘What?’ I interrupt, grasping none of this. ‘Lady Mother, what are you saying?’
‘Ask your husband,’ she says. ‘Bishop Stillington told the story himself – didn’t he?’ she demands of Richard. ‘The bishop stood by and said nothing while Edward ignored Lady Eleanor and she went into a nunnery. Edward rewarded his silence. But when the bishop saw that the Rivers were putting their boy on the throne, and he a bastard, he went to your husband and told him all he knew: Edward was married when he made his secret agreement with Elizabeth Woodville. Even if it was a valid priest, even if it was a valid service, it still was nothing. Edward was already married. Those children, all those children, are bastards. There is no House of Rivers. There is no queen. She is a mistress and her bastard sons are pretenders. That is all.’
I turn in amazement to Richard. ‘Is this true?’
He shoots a swift beleaguered look at me. ‘I don’t know,’ he says shortly. ‘The bishop says he married Edward to Lady Eleanor in a valid ceremony. They are both dead. Edward claimed Elizabeth Woodville as his wife and her son as his heir. Don’t I have to honour my brother’s wishes?’
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