Anyway, Parliament usually assembles at Westminster, where the last but one Inglysshe king before the Normans had built a great hall and a big church, and was now in session, having been summoned under the seal of King Henry, once he had been brought down from Northampton. It had been summoned with the view of ratifying the Protectorship of York and the placement of Yorkist supporters in all the principal posts of government.
The hall has a throne at one end and many handsome windows down the sides. There is also a minstrels' gallery at the back above the large doors and it was there that we were allowed to sit with ambassadors from other lands. Trumpets sounded and in came York, his sword of state still carried in front of him. making his way through the crowd beneath us, straight up to the throne. He stood for a moment, turned, and put his hand on it. The gesture was clearly proprietorial and drew a sort of sigh and moan from all there.
This York, whom we were seeing at last and for the first time, was a big, proud man but already fifty years old or thereabouts, dark hair grizzled, broad-shouldered, large-chested with big hands and strong thighs. But his face was lined, even wrinkled, and his mouth wore an unchanging expression of dissatisfaction. One felt that here was a man capable of almost anything that would not injure his self-esteem to perform. And claiming the throne did not come under that heading.
Clearly he expected applause, acclamation. None came. After that first sigh, like wind through trees, there was silence, scarce broken by the jingle of a spur or a cough.
He took a deep breath. His eyes narrowed. 'Know ye all,' he announced, in a deep, resonant voice, ‘I, as grandnephew of the usurped King Richard the Second and great-grandson of Edward the Third, do challenge and claim the realm of Ingerlond. I propose to be crowned on All Hallows Day coming…'
'When?' I whispered to Ali.
'All Saints' Day, first of November, three weeks' time…'
He might have said more but at that moment a man in gold robes and a strange jewelled hat divided in two as if cloven with an axe, pushed up to York. This turned out to be his brother-in-law Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury.
'Don't you think, Richard, since we already have a king, and we have all, yourself included, made holy vows of allegiance to him, we should have a word with him first before we go through with this? See what he thinks about it?'
This drew a rustle of assent from Parliament.
'I know of no one in the realm who would not come more fitly to me than I to him,' said York. Hut he looked around and took in from the manner and expressions of those in front of him that he had gone too far. 'Well, if that's what you want, take me to the King,' he added, and he marched out of the hall.
We followed as best we could but this time were left behind. But we were told of how King Henry, for once achieving some dignity, faced his cousin down, claiming he was king by right and law and the acclamation of the people, and reminding them all of their oaths of allegiance.
There seemed now to be no solution in sight. Henry was indeed king, though the grandson of a usurper, since he had been anointed, crowned. On the other side. York was descended from an older uncle of Richard than John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, who was Henry's great-greatgrandfather, though through that older uncle's daughter… It was all very complicated, as you see.
However, Warwick, who was astute and not as hotheaded as York, understood that the lords' and commons' feelings were with Henry, though not with his Queen and government, and the upshot of it all, after a fortnight of wrangling, was that he was able to persuade York to accept for now the governance of the country as Protector but not as king, but with the provision that if Henry died first he, York, would succeed rather than Edward. Prince of Wales, the son of Queen Margaret and possibly of Henry too.
I realise now. dear cousin, that throughout these proceedings, which I have described to you, I have written of the lords and commons as if these were all the lords and commons. They were not. Many lords, many more than had been at the battle of Northampton, were in the north with the Queen and Prince, and most of the knights and common people of the north also sided with her. The Duke of Somerset, he whom we had met at Guisnes in the Pale of Calais, had returned to Exeter in the west and was raising an army too, and all her other supporters were now flocking to the north-east, to Northumberland on the Scottish borders, where she already had an army of twenty thousand. When she heard that her son had been disinherited she became mad with rage. And she is now moving south, encouraging her army to loot and sack all who live on land owned by the Yorkists.
Here in London Parliament has dispersed and most of York's potential army with it. It seems he has lost much support by aiming for the throne, and all fear the Queen. Only his most loyal friends, those who could never expect clemency from the Queen, remain. York says he will go north to fight her, but the opinion is that he will be lucky to raise an army half the size of hers.
Thus, through pride and overvaulting ambition, York has lost what he might have had and is like to lose much more. Some say, even his head.
Dear cousin, believe me, I shall keep you informed of the outcome as soon as it is known.
Your obedient and affectionate cousin,
Prince Harihara Raya Kurteishi
I drew breath at last and laid down the last page of Chamberlain Anish's neat, correct script.
'there,' I said. ‘I must say I am all agog to hear what happened next.'
However, a gentle snore told me that Ali was less than eager and had at last succumbed to the blessed relief he sought from the pains and aches that came with the rain. I picked up the next page and began to read once more, silently, to myself.
Chapter Forty-Two
Dear Cousin A fortnight before the winter solstice we left London. Having ascertained that the campaign would take place in the north I decided that we might as well travel with the protection of the Yorkist army as near to Macclesfield Forest as possible in an attempt to get to Jehani's hideout. Thus we would avoid the dangers of highways now given over almost entirely to the depredations of bands of brigands and outlaws.
The case was that, with these civil wars, lawlessness stalked the countryside and, indeed, the smaller towns too. With two monarchs in arms against each other, instead of doing their duty and maintaining order and decency in their realm, lords and lordlings were taking the opportunity to settle old feuds and pursue rival claims for land by means of arms rather than recourse to the law. At the best of times, though, recourse to the courts is always a slow, protracted business in this country, relying not on the wisdom of tried and disinterested judges but an endless parade of lawyers loaded with piles of parchment, Deeds, grants, reversals and titles going back to the Conqueror and even beyond. The result is, more often than not, that the disputed property is wasted in fees before a court, also administered by lawyers, arrives at a decision.
A quicker settlement can be arrived at with a few discharges from blunderbusses and beatings with clubs, and the consequence is that if one is not directly robbed and murdered one may easily be caught up in the cross-fire between rival tending parties.
So, on the ninth of the month they call the tenth, although it is actually the twelfth, we left by Lud's Gate, near the front of an army said to be ten thousand strong but known to be not much more than half that number, travelling at the speed of a team of oxen pulling a large cannon over bad roads. That is, at a slow walk. Need I say it was raining? But now it was a cold, penetrating rain driving in grey curtains across the rolling countryside, or drifting down out of a grey sky.
York rode at the head of this motley band with his son, a handsome young man of seventeen years, known as the Earl of Rutland, at his side, while the rear was under the command of Warwick's father, the Earl of Salisbury. Warwick himself, with other leading Yorkists, remained in London, ostensibly to ensure that a steady train of supplies would be sent on behind the army, to raise further funds from the merchants (who had already contributed four hundred marks, a considerable sum)
but in fact poised to return to Calais should matters not turn out as they wanted them to. The King, too, was kept in London with them, a figurehead symbolising the justness of their cause, though in fact a prisoner in the Tower, in the very rooms we had occupied for so many months.
Eddie March was the exception: he was sent into the borderlands between Wales and England where the Yorkists owned much land and where he was expected to recruit a large army, which would link up with York hopefully before they confronted the horde of Scots and Tynesiders the Queen had collected. These were now moving slowly south, looting, raping, burning as they came and thereby costing the Queen much willing and loyal support. Such was the booty, and the freedom they were given to make off with it, though, that her army steadily increased in size. All those bands of vagabonds and bandits I mentioned just now were happy to join her and thereby legitimise what they were already doing.
Our army, however, for all new recruits joined it daily out of fear of the looming presence of the Queen's and because many were tenants of York himself, remained much the same size or even diminished: the further we got from London the more the original drafts melted away and returned home.
At the solstice we came close to a town called Wakefield and at a distance from it of a mile or so to a huge grey castle, called Sandal Castle, set on a hill amongst woods and fields. This was the very midnight of the year, when, just as at the height of summer the sun dipped below the horizon for a mere five hours or so and the sky remained bright even after it had gone, now the reverse was true. Now it was up for barely five hours, remained low in the sky even at midday, often behind cloud, had no heat in it and left the nights long and impenetrably dark. Being that much further north it was worse than Calais. Though why this should be was beyond me to work out.
Sandal Castle, though huge, with a keep as big or bigger than that of the Tower, could still not accommodate an army of some six thousand. Nor had it been properly provisioned. Nevertheless it was a safe refuge and all York's captains urged him to keep his army within the walls or close up outside them until Eddie March could come to his aid – for aid he needed. The Queen's army now numbered twenty thousand at least. On their side the Queen's captains were desperate to bring him to a fight while they had such a huge advantage.
You will already have gathered from the scenes in London described in my last letter that this York was a wild, uncontrolled, proud man, easily angered, and impatient. Desperate to be king in name as well as fact. Urged to remain within his castle's walls he threw some furniture about and shouted, 'Would you have me shut my gates for fear of a scold? Would you have all men call me a coward and a sot? For they certainly will if I give in to a witch whose only weapons are her nails and her tongue.' Which was irrational, considering that as well as her nails and her tongue she had three times as many men and cannon as he had.
Christmas came, the rime when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. They do this, as indeed we had already seen in Calais twelve months before, by drinking themselves stupid over twelve days, and eating enormous amounts of meat, both of which stimulate the production of choleric humours especially in men sanguine by nature. The Queen played on this. She sent heralds into the castle who taunted York with being afraid of a woman. Meanwhile his victuallers reported that food was running out and, worse still, strong drink, and that the Queen's army lay across his supply lines.
Worse than that, all attempts failed at dealing with the human waste of six thousand men kept within walls. It was not something these Ingerlonders were good at. Quite simply, after seven days of shitting everywhere, there was shit everywhere, freezing and thawing out of doors, gently steaming in corners indoors. Yet, his only hope and best strategy was to stay put and hope March would soon come out of the west with reinforcements.
Then, on the night of the twenty-ninth, while most of the notables were in the castle hall chewing over the stringy carcasses of laying hens slaughtered for the table, there was a sudden clanging of feet from the passages, a timbered nail-studded door was thrown up and a guard of five men surged in with a mud-bespattered but armed knight in their midst wearing a surcoat with a white diagonal cross on a red ground, the arms of the Nevilles, appliqued to it. Hauled to a spot on the floor just below where York was sitting, the following conversation took place.
'My name and style are Arnold Fiennes, knight, and I am of the affinity of Andrew Trollope-'
'He's an arrant traitor,' cried our noble duke. 'Fifteen months ago, at Ludlow, he defected. Bugger off.'
'Not so. Your Grace, he merely put himself in mind of his oath to King Henry. He is mindful now of that oath, and recognising that you are here in the King's name will side with you if tomorrow you will bring forth your power against the Queen.'
'How many men has the old bastard got?'
'Six thousand, Your Grace.'
'Bloody hell, that should do it.'
This Trollope – which, by the way, is a word signifying harlot, so is an odd name for a warrior – was an old man who, when he was only fifteen years old, had fought for King Harry at Agincourt and in many campaigns since; moreover, lie had been captain of Calais for a time. This all led to his harbouring a grudge. He had done so much service for royal masters over so long a period he believed he should have been a lord many times over. But the Normans are so jealous of their blood they are reluctant to ennoble any who may be tainted with Inglyssheness, unless it be in the female line, and so plain Andrew he remained.
York was blinded by pride but not so Brother Peter, who did not think we should allow ourselves to be caught on the losing side. He was all for getting out of it while we were unscathed. At first light, an hour before dawn, he managed to talk us through. Wrapped in our cloaks we passed for burgesses of Wakefield going back to town with orders for food and so forth.
The track from the castle took us across an open stretch of land, known as Wakefield Green, kept in better times as grazing for the castle's cattle and sheep and even those of the common people. It took us down a gentle rise to a river with a bridge then up again, over a distance of half a mile or so, to a low, rounded ridge between two patches of woodland. The river was a brook only, almost dry and what water was in it frozen, easily crossed anywhere but yet an obstacle if one was in a hurry.
There was not a soul in sight as we left the castle by a sallyport a bribed sergeant had opened for us. Behind us the walls and dungeons of the casde rose up through the mist, impregnable and safe – it would take even cannon a week or so to breach them and great expense of powder. In front and around us the meadow was so whitened with frost, which crunched beneath our feet, it put me in mind of the way countrywomen at home spread washed sheets and so forth over bushes to dry.
In the woods the cackling crows rose from their roosts in the crowns of the trees and were answered by the jackdaws in the castle – it was as if the Queen's army had melted away in the night. But as soon as we breasted the ridge we saw this was not so.
Below, stretching back into the countryside, was a vast camp of tents and makeshift shelters made out of bent hazel branches with cloaks and blankets thrown across the hoops. The tents were round and in front of them standards drooped from poles and shields were hung on lances. Brother Peter, whose knowledge was encyclopaedic, had just begun to identify these: 'Somerset,' he began, 'Northumberland. Exeter, Devon and Clifford…' when we were arrested and taken to the Queen's tent.
She was beautiful, yes, but with a hard meanness in her lips, a harsh voice, or a voice made harsh by constantly having to be heard in the company of proud men with few manners. Having heard we were from the castle she was all for taking our heads off there and then but first asked us if we knew the intentions of York.
'Madam.' I said, 'we are travellers in your country and as such have much to be grateful for. We have been received everywhere with kindness and we have been honoured with hospitality from both sides in this sad conflict. It would therefore be invidious of us to…'
Her anger app
eared to deepen, although I was speaking with no more ceremony than a prince should. However, at that moment a bishop to whom Brother Peter had been whispering intervened. 'This holy friar,' he said, 'has news that will interest us all. Even as we speak, York, believing Trollope will fight at his side today, is preparing to bring his power on to the field.'
The Queen then turned to her captains, Somerset and Northumberland. 'Sound drum and trumpet," she cried. 'Let the men go to the positions we have already decided upon.'
What we were about to see was the first of four battles that all took place within a quarter of a year of each other. It was the only one where it could be said of one side that a coherent plan had been formed in advance and was more or less adhered to, right from the ruse of persuading York to venture out by Trollope's apparent treachery. Each succeeding engagement was worse than the one before. This one was straightforward slaughter. I have already described to you the ground on which it was fought. As was the custom the Queen's army was divided into three. The central body was commanded by Somerset, with the Queen and her seven-year-old son at his side. Other lords led large bodies of men into the woods on either side of Wakefield Green, by devious routes so their presence was not detected by the Yorkists. Though a flurry of soaring crows might have given them cause to wonder if they had had the eyes of a simple ploughman amongst them. All they could see was a single line of men-at-arms, in hill armour but most unmounted, along the low ridge in front of them.
They came down across the grass, and across the rivulet at the bottom. They formed up, all six thousand in a solid line six deep, with their cannon in front. And still the Queen did not move. Presently three men, fully armed, with squires carrying their battle standards with them, rode out in front of the rest. The Queen's herald, standing near us, interpreted their armorial bearings. 'The royal arms, madam, and the royal arms with a difference. Must be York and his younger son Rutland. And the white saltire on red for a Neville – Salisbury, I suppose.'
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