Within the Hollow Crown: A Valiant King's Struggle to Save His Country, His Dynasty, and His Love

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  Chaucer had married Katherine Swinford's sister—a woman of gentle birth—and adored her. Perhaps the very fact that they had served in separate households had perpetuated the sweet flowering of their love. His finely chiselled features and normally freshcoloured cheeks were ashen, and tearing anxiety had dulled the kindly humour of his glance. Having lived with various members of the Plantagenet family for twenty years or more, he went straight to the King without embarrassment. "I have just seen the roof fall in," he said, without wealth of words and still panting from the turret stairs. "Philippa, my wife—as you know, sir, she is one of the Duchess's ladies—I believe they got away, but…"

  Richard stepped forward and took the blindly groping hand which had written so much lovely poetry. "For God's sake, Henry, give him what comfort you can!"

  Bolingbroke was sorry enough for the fellow, although of course he couldn't show it as Richard did. He rather despised poets, but this Chaucer was a man of parts. He had fought and even been taken prisoner in France, and the late King himself had ransomed him. So he hastened to assure him that his Philippa had gone north with her sister in the Duchess Constanza's train.

  Even while voicing relief and thanks, Geoffrey Chaucer was swift to realize that the room was crowded with distinguished personages with whom he was far less at home. He began to realize, too, that they were all avid for news. "It was hearing the screams as the roof fell in that was so awful," he apologized. "Some poor drunken wights must have been still in the gutted cellars, besotted with wine. Not being sure about my wife, I tried to land from my revenue boat. But the flames were too fierce. That fanatic Ball was there, shouting to his followers to throw the Duke's treasures into the water. One could hear his voice above the cracking of the rafters, telling them that all who possessed riches were damned. I saw priceless paintings floating like rags…"

  "And what about the wharves on either side?" asked Gloucester.

  Chaucer was becoming his normally coolly observant self again. "Our own they have spared, sir. But the Flemish wharves are a shambles. Even from midstream I could see the wrecked weighing sheds and every Fleming who had not escaped lying headless in his own blood."

  "How can a man who forbids looting allow murder?" demanded Richard indignantly, wondering how on earth he was to placate the Flemish government.

  "It seems they have got beyond his control," answered Nicholas Brembre, who had gone as far as he dared by road and come back to report. "Some faint-hearted citizens with more money than sense have been trying to buy favour by opening their cellars to the rabble. They forget that most of these peasants have never in their lives tasted anything stronger than cheap tavern ale."

  "And most of the great vats down in the Vintry have been broken open," confirmed Chaucer. "I was there only this morning, hoping to conclude the sale of my late father's warehouse."

  "Having moved up and up until you live over a City gatehouse and no longer need it!" laughed John Holland boisterously. He never could understand what his august relatives saw in the insignificant wine merchant's son to trust him with important offices at home and private missions abroad which he would have liked for himself.

  But Chaucer could afford to ignore him, and went on talking to the King with that happy blend of candour and respect which makes a family servant a friend. "They'd cleared out everything. The good Gascoigny and Rhinish that my father used to supply to yours, sir—and even your own favourite vintage."

  "My poor Geoffrey!" commiserated Richard, wiping out John's jibe with an arm briefly laid about a sensitive man's shoulders. He turned back into the centre of the room with a rueful laugh. "And to think that I've got to go out and talk to them while they're inflamed with my own Bordeaux!"

  He spoke with intentional lightness, but everybody stared at him as if he were mad, and Joan rose abruptly with a hand pressed to either cheek. "Oh, no, Richard!" she protested.

  He knew that both she and Lizbeth had lost their nerve since the Rotherhithe episode. "You saw how reasonable the peasants were yesterday," he reminded her. "This morning I propose to meet some of the Essex men, and Walworth says they're not nearly so savage as your Kentish toughs." He turned to his uncle and the rest, unaware of how slight a figure he looked in their midst. "I thought it might appease them if I offered to meet them all in that meadow at Mile End where the prentices hold their sports. How far would that be, Brembre?"

  "About two miles, I should say, sir."

  Richard went and perched on the table, which was still littered with his mother's impromptu meal. "That should be far enough to draw this howling mob off from here, shouldn't it, Uncle Thomas? And to give all decent citizens time to arm under Sir Robert Knollys?"

  For some reason or other Gloucester looked quite pleased with the suggestion. "It should give time for quite a lot of things to happen," he agreed civilly, after a moment or two's cogitation.

  But as usual the Hollands were clamorous and argumentative.

  "Why humble ourselves to them like that? They'll probably all be dead drunk in a few hours, and we could plan a night attack and butcher the lot," suggested the elder.

  "Words! Words! What's the good of words, Richard?" the younger wanted to know.

  But the Earl of Salisbury, whose courage no man could question, upheld his King. "If you think you can really appease them by fair words, sir, it will be so much the better," he said quietly. "For if we take too high a stand and fail to go through with it, it will be all over with us and our heirs, and England will be a desert in their hands."

  Richard drew resolution from the man's personal liking and his patriotism. For once two people of experience and standing had backed his own ideas. "Then are you ready to ride with me, gentlemen?" he asked, turning to the rest of them.

  They had expected him to beg for their advice—to shilly-shally and spin out the morning in safety. But the words were less of a question than a command.

  Blank surprise was in their faces, and cold fear in their hearts. But rather than be shamed before his fellows each man muttered assent. All of them must have known that sooner or later Gloucester or Walworth or one of the Hollands would have to sponsor some desperate sort of action; but so far, in spite of all their united military experience, no leader had been forthcoming. And it had been left to this boy of fourteen to rouse them. A leader as unexpected as he was inexperienced. It was preposterous, of course—and damaging to their pride. Small wonder that their grudging admiration was mingled with scepticism. It was only youngsters like Bolingbroke and Standish and adventurous opportunists like Brembre who caught something from the flame that kindled him and began to rally round.

  But already Richard was beginning to organize the affair and as he called for messengers and ordered the horses some of them caught echoes of his father's crisp, decisive tones.

  "Well, if we've got to do this crazy thing, for God's sake let's put on some armour," grumbled Thomas Holland.

  Richard was concentrating on the wording of a message which he and Salisbury were trying to concoct. "Not obviously—it would spoil everything," he objected. "Under our tunics, if you like."

  "And by the same reasoning it would be provoking trouble to take any archers," pointed out Salisbury.

  But the sight of her two elder sons quilting themselves against dagger thrusts and the youngest allowing a mesh of mail to be belted about his immature body was too much for Joan. "All three of you!" she cried, covering her face with both hands. "After yesterday, I can't live through it—waiting for you to come back!"

  Thomas stopped half in and half out of the quilted jacket his squire was slipping over his head and looked across at this incalculable, fair-skinned young brother of his. For years he'd been trying to make a decent sportsman of him, and here he was calmly arranging for people to ride out into the teeth of a drink-crazed mob. And on a morning when one's bowels were already as water. "Don't you think one of us ought to stay, Dickon?" he suggested hopefully.

  His head rose like a sallow cheese a
bove the jacket; two of his front teeth had been knocked out in a recent tournament and this ridiculous changing business had so disarranged his hair as to make it obvious to all beholders that he was beginning to go bald. For the first time Richard viewed him dispassionately and wondered why he had always looked up to him as such a magnificent person. It was Thomas, he recalled, who had been loudest in making their mother his excuse for returning so hurriedly yesterday. "Henry will be staying," he answered briefly, bending to put his signet to the message.

  Bolingbroke, who had been swifter than any of them in getting into his armour, began to protest, and Richard understood well enough how one of his temperament must resent the indignity of being left behind with a lot of women and priests. "Obviously, Henry, it will make things easier for us all," he pointed out patiently.

  Reluctantly, Bolingbroke motioned to his squire, Ferrour, to help him disarm again. "Of course, if you put it like that—"

  But Richard laid a detaining hand on the immaculately polished hauberk. From where he stood he could still see smoke drifting from the Savoy palace, and it seemed scarcely likely that a city's hatred would be spent with the flames. "I shouldn't take the thing off until all this business is over, if I were you," he warned, lowering his voice. "Maybe you didn't see that archer yesterday—"

  Bolingbroke's strong, spatulate fingers dropped from the buckle he had been sullenly wrenching at. "Yes, I did see—and I'm grateful," he muttered, avoiding Richard's eyes. It didn't come easily to him to say thank you, or to owe his life to someone whom he had always considered rather a milksop. And because generosity was not inherent in his nature it didn't tend to make him like this important cousin of his any the better.

  There were hasty farewells and a mounting of restive, illexercised steeds in the courtyard. Already the howling of the mob was stilled and watchmen on the walls reported that on receipt of the King's message there had been a consultation of rebel leaders and a general drawing away of forces in the direction of Mile End. Great crowds from St. Catherine's were already gone.

  It had been decided to go out by the postern in the eastern wall, striking up northwards just outside the City boundary and joining the Mile End road outside Aldgate. But when the small gate was opened the King's party saw that hundreds of rebels remained, grim, watchful and silent, close under the Tower walls.

  "They've tricked us!" exclaimed a dozen voices, as men and horses jostled in the entrance.

  "Tyler's been too clever for us again, dividing his forces," observed Nicholas Brembre, almost admiringly.

  After the first moment of dismay, Richard turned instinctively to rate the Lieutenant of the Tower for allowing his men to report so ill. But the man was nowhere to be seen, and there was nothing for it but to go forward.

  Neither he nor any of his companions had keyed themselves up to be confronted immediately by that battery of hostile eyes, those rows of grimed arms holding bills and hooks and stones. Until that moment Richard himself had had little time to think of the danger of the enterprise—to consider what his own reactions would be. The moment Blanchette's dainty hoofs tapped the planks of the narrow drawbridge in full view of that still, formidable crowd the old familiar chill of fear gripped him. It took away his breath, like plunging naked into icy water. He would have given anything— anything—to turn back into the security of the courtyard. But a great swearing and pushing of flanks behind him forced him forward, and inevitably the feeling passed, to be followed by a lovely excitement and sense of exhilaration. Adventure lay before him, and the joy of personal endeavour. He rode out bareheaded into the summer morning.

  All eyes were upon him. He was conscious of that hush which always prefaced his movements, and acutely aware that his demeanour held the crowd. As his senses accustomed themselves to such exposed publicity he became capable of secondary thought. Out of the tail of his eye he saw a small boat put out stealthily from below the arches where the kitchen sluice fell into the moat. But to his dismay it withdrew almost instantly before a spurt of cruel jeers and the splashing of many stones. "Poor old Sudbury!" he exclaimed, in bitter disappointment.

  Gloucester, pushing forward to ride beside him, looked at him sharply. In the anxiety of the moment his hard, light eyes were less carefully veiled than usual. "So you're doing this harebrained thing to save him!" he snarled. And by the ill-concealed violence that emanated from him, Richard knew that he didn't want Sudbury to be saved.

  But the sudden illuminating thought was drowned in present reality. The postern drawbridge was already up and all retreat cut off. Each man must have turned towards Aldgate feeling as if his heart were in his throat. Soon they had skirted the City wall and turned sharply right on to the Bow road. It stretched like a straight, dusty ribbon between Hackney marshes and the river. No more insurgents were in sight. But some of the King's small, outnumbered company had been badly shaken. He could hear them keeping up their spirits with shaky jests behind him, and addressing each other with an unwonted cordiality born of nervousness. And presently he was aware of Thomas's harsh voice, croaky with distress, complaining of the pains in his belly and the ague which made it almost impossible for him to hold the reins.

  Richard turned and looked at him. The man really did look ill. And they were just nearing the White Chapel where the good Carmelite brethren would care for him. "Better go in there and rest until our return," he shouted back, remembering with compunction how his war-tried father had often looked like that. And for once Thomas took his advice.

  "It's all this worry," thought Richard, ingenuously. But for himself, in spite of worried days and sleepless nights, he felt fit and clear-headed. He had no idea what he would say to those hordes of Essex men waiting at Mile End, but he would let them air their grievances. This time, whatever happened, he wouldn't run away. And—given goodwill on both sides—no doubt they would be able to come to some lasting agreement. After all, their comrades outside the Tower could have hewn him in pieces just now, but they hadn't. And for the moment it was enough that he was no longer afraid and that the sun shone. Sunshine to him was always worth more than ten score archers, and he even broke into a gay French song, grinning widely at the curious antics of John Holland's rawboned horse. It was the kind of mount that neither he nor Mowbray would have been seen dead on. "How can a man of your experience be such an appalling judge of horseflesh?" he broke off to shout banteringly.

  John didn't answer him. And then, quite suddenly, the most extraordinary thing happened. Without excuse or apology or any word of warning his precious half-brother set spurs to the fidgeting brute, cleared a ditch and bolted across a field of rye towards the lonely safety of the Hackney marshes.

  Clearly, his nerve had broken.

  The whole party reined in to stare after him. All of them had been called upon to witness some amazing incidents during this last week, but this was unbelievable. John Holland, who would prick a man in the gizzard as soon as argue with him, disappearing like a common craven in a cloud of dust!

  "Perhaps it was your Grace's untimely singing unnerved him," suggested the irrepressible Brembre. And Walworth laughed contemptuously, for there was no London tradesman but had felt the scorn of the younger Holland's haughty tongue.

  But Richard burst out laughing. "If only Robert could have seen him!" he spluttered. It struck him as excruciatingly funny that his mother's fire-eating favourite who was always sneering at him should have bolted like that. And it gave him, too, a warm surprised feeling of superiority, so that he patted Blanchette forward almost eagerly and even grimaced cheerfully at his uncle. After all, there was something in being a Plantagenet.

  Chapter Ten

  It was long past noon before Richard rode back into London, but he felt neither tired nor hungry. In a few short hours he seemed to have become a different person. He had laid hands on his heritage and it had not eluded him. Some of the very men who for personal ambition had tried to stamp out the flame of his spirit had stood silently by and taken second place in
this strange emergency. Their assumption and his own consequent fears that he might not rise to the splendid record of his own family had proved false. He had seen Thomas of Gloucester tongue-tied and the Hollands skulking among monks or flying like poltroons; while he—the youngster whom they chose to think effeminate—had kept his head.

  For three solid hours he had talked with the insurgents. Not from any barge or battlements, but pushing his horse in amongst them as his interest grew. Moreover, he had liked them. They were honest, upstanding men upon whose drudgery the country depended; and they turned to him naturally with their grievances, ignoring all the complications of Councils and the pretensions of his uncles. This time, being neither hurried nor flurried, he had found that he could follow the roughness of their speech and even appreciate the racy virility of phrase which Geoffrey Chaucer always chose as the medium of his verse.

  They had laid before him facts and demands undulled as yet by the tedious circumlocution of Council chambers. And his own mind had worked like quicksilver, following their arguments. Heriot and merchet, for example, were dues which he and his kind had always extracted from them as a matter of course; but seen from their point of view these old feudal usages looked less reasonable. Why should a man who worked hard all his days be fined for dying or pay to get his daughters married? And then there were the old vexed questions about a villein's right to buy and sell in open markets, to snare rabbits on manorial lands and to take his little bit of corn to be ground at any mill he chose.