The Dragon and the Rose

by Roberta Gellis

  That morning a scrawled note in Henry's hand had informed them that battle would be joined on the sixteenth. They knew the battle had already been won or lost, but they did not know which. Margaret's strength was exhausted. She had prayed until her mind was blank, and now she sat with slow tears streaking her cheeks, indifferent to everything but her own agony.

  Elizabeth had been no help to Margaret and no good to herself. She only struggled for composure in Henry's presence. When he was not there to be protected, Elizabeth gave way without reserve to her fears. She had been embroidering new cuffs for the white gloves Henry had ruined hawking when the message came, and she had thrown the gloves away and fallen into screaming hysterics.

  It had taken her ladies an hour to calm her, and the fit had returned on and off all day until she was so exhausted her breathing had appeared to fail and she had nearly choked. That had frightened her even more, not that she feared to die but that she feared to leave Arthur without any protection. She began to struggle to control herself, concentrating on drawing one breath and then another.

  The next messenger was brought into the quiet garden supported in the guardsmen's arms. He was dirty and bloodied, his arms and armor cast away.

  "The battle is lost," he sobbed, "lost. The king is fled. Save yourself, madam. Take your son and fly to sanctuary. "

  Margaret cried out, but Elizabeth sat still as death. She drew another careful breath. "What did you say—about the king, not about the battle?"

  "The king is fled to save his life. All is lost."

  "Take this man and put him in prison," Elizabeth said quietly to the frightened guardsmen. "Hold him full straitly, chained, and with a man to guard him also. He lies. To lie on such a matter is high treason, and the king will desire to know who set him to speak treason."

  The guardsmen were far less tender as they dragged the messenger out, and also more grim and less alarmed.

  "Well done, Elizabeth," Margaret whispered shakily. "Oh, well done. Now what shall we do? The world is overturned. Even the Bible is reversed. Now the mother-in-law says to her husband's wife, 'Wither thou goest, I shall go.' Where shall we go, Elizabeth?"

  "Go?" Elizabeth asked, breathing carefully. "We will bide still here until word comes from Harry. The man did lie."

  "Such things happen." Margaret had lived through news of lost battles that seemed just as incredible as this.

  "Not to Henry." Elizabeth looked into her mother-in-law's frightened eyes. "I have not lost my wits. A lost battle could happen to Henry, but he would not have fled the field. If I were told that the battle was lost and the king was dead—that I would believe, but Henry would not run. He has had sufficient of that in the past. He would rather die."

  Margaret covered her face with her hands. "Pray God you are right. In faith, I think you know my son better than I know him myself."

  Night fell, candles were lighted in the queen's chamber. Very quietly some of her clothing and jewels were packed. Charles Brandon, Buckingham, and Arthur were put to sleep in her bedchamber. To disbelieve was reasonable; but it was also necessary to be ready if the news was bad. The hours crawled. Midnight, one of the clock, two of the clock—nearly three it was before the women tensed at the sound of spurs clinking in the passageway.

  "Lord Willoughby de Broke," the guard announced.

  He entered smiling, but his expression changed to astonishment when Margaret and Elizabeth burst into loud weeping at the sight of him.

  "Madam! Your Grace! The news is good! It could not be better. We have destroyed their entire army. Lincoln and the Irishman are dead. The false Warwick is taken. The king is safe. I pray you, do not weep."

  And to his greater astonishment, the queen whom he had always believed disliked him, flew out of her chair and kissed him all over his sweaty face.

  "Your Grace," he cried, recoiling.

  But retreat was impossible. He was grasped by the hand and pushed into a chair by a glowing Elizabeth who laughed and wept at once. The king's mother herself poured wine and pressed it upon him. The queen took his hat and gloves from his nerveless fingers. Together they would have knelt to unfasten his spurs and pull off his boots with their own hands except that his horror of such an act restrained them.

  "Tell us, tell us," they cried in chorus, and drew up chairs themselves, too impatient to wait for the servants to help them, so that they could sit almost knee to knee with him.

  "Madam. Your Grace," de Broke stammered, "I am no teller of tales. It was a hard-fought battle, that I say. Harder than we thought it would be. And it was the king in his own person who won it. He was like a lion. Oxford was stalled. The Germans and the Irish fought bravely. They were our enemies, but no man can deny their courage. It was the king who broke the battle. When our troops could not win forward, His Grace charged himself. Then they tried to trick us. One dressed like unto His Grace fled and many cried out of that, but Surrey cried out that the king was still fighting, and I knew it for I was with him the whole time, and then—we won."

  Margaret and Elizabeth laughed and cried again. Lord de Broke certainly was no teller of tales, but he had greater comfort for them. Henry expected to be home by the next day or the day after that at the latest, and they knew they would have a clearer recounting from him.

  The battle of Stoke—the last full-scale battle of the Wars of the Roses—was over. Henry was regarded with even greater admiration by his friends while his enemies drew in their horns, accepting the fact that the king was temporarily invincible. All expected his customary leniency; they were mistaken.

  Every man who had been on the field at Stoke and was caught was slaughtered. Then Henry came home and tried to wash the blood from his body and his memory. But he was not finished. He had determined to teach his people a lesson. After a few days' rest at Kenilworth, the king traveled north and like an avenging angel turned his attention to those who had not responded to his summons.

  All men who could not show proof that they had contributed in some way to his struggle were pulled from their houses, sometimes from their beds, and questioned. Henry was still squeamish. Little blood flowed, but money from fines poured into his treasury. He would not wait until the customs and other revenues had replenished his capital. He would make more than political profit out of this rebellion. When he was through, he would be rich and the rebellious would be too poor to rebel again. To friend and foe alike he said the same thing.

  "Once I forgave and I gave warning. I will never forgive—not even simple disobedience—again. Never again."

  Only to the false Warwick, whose name they now knew to be Lambert Simnel, the son of an Oxford tradesman, was Henry softer. And even that had its purpose. He listened to the young man's story, to the tale of the bad priest Symonds who had seen in him a resemblance to the Yorkist rulers and had therefore taught him manners and speech above his station, who had convinced him he would be gloriously rewarded by the real Warwick, who had forced him between flattery and threats into the imposture.

  "The masters of Ireland," Henry had said, laughing, "they will crown apes at last."

  He made sure that many heard him, and when the masters of Ireland came to wait on him humbly, two years later, he summoned Lambert Simnel from the kitchen and bade him serve them wine, and repeated his remark to their faces.

  Simnel was pardoned; he was taken into the king's service—to become a turnspit in the kitchen, a laughable object for display to others who considered rebellion. Symonds, his evil genius, was handed over to Canterbury, for only the Church had jurisdiction over a priest. In this case Henry had no fault to find with the system. When John Morton was through with Symonds, he would have wished for the king's justice to have had him many times over—the king was a good deal more squeamish, at his worst, than John Morton.

  It was a long, hard summer and autumn, but when the writs summoning parliament went out on September 1 the men who received them came quickly. They came humbly with bowed heads, knowing that on November 9 whatever t
he king asked, suggested, or even hinted would be given without a single dissenting voice. Henry was the absolute master of his kingdom. Whatever of the Yorkist nobility and squirearchy he had not previously won to his side by his energy and clemency, he had now cowed by cold severity.

  The treatment that Henry used was particularly effective. No hot passions were aroused by the cruelty of executions. No sympathy was drawn to a victim stripped naked of his lands, exiled, or left starving. Whoever had flouted Henry's orders became pitiful, yes, but a pitiful laughingstock for his property was left to him, as were the means of redeeming his position in the future.

  The fines were carefully adjusted so that a man, mortgaging what he had up to the hilt, could pay without being destroyed. Such a man could be accounted a fool by his more loyal neighbors, could arouse a rich sense of caution in them, without creating sensations of horror.

  "And I cannot tell—" Henry pointed out with a satisfied smile, the day after he had entered London with the usual triumph and was sitting in council with his financial advisers "—why any king has ever been stupid enough to lop off his subjects' heads. What profit can be made from a dead man? And do not tell me I would then have the lands as my own. Would it not cost me to run the property, for overseers, laborers, repairs? Would I not have to support the widow and children? Here I am with a fine, clear profit," Henry glanced fondly at the fat tally sheets which lay on the table, "while the victim of my pruning will be kept so busy saving his property from the moneylenders that he will not have time to hate me or to trouble about politics."

  "Very true, sire," Dynham said. "Now, about the use of this gold. Some should be kept in reserve; but the remainder might well be invested in shipping, in which Your Grace seems interested and which is a great good to the realm. Now I have here …"

  Henry sighed, rested his head on his hand, and let his mind wander. Usually he was keenly interested in anything to do with money, but just now he was in a holiday mood. He was thinking of his reception by the Londoners, which had been loud and joyous, and of his reception by Elizabeth, which had been quieter but equally joyous. Arthur, too, had greeted him; Henry laughed involuntarily and had to excuse himself to Dynham who looked surprised and a trifle affronted. Arthur had thrown a block of wood at his fond father's head, shrieking with joy, and when Henry had lifted him to kiss, had wet his somewhat less fond father all down his doublet and hose.

  Margaret had been there, too, but in a more serious mood than the others. First she had told him she was retiring to Richmond again.

  "But why, mother?"

  "For your purposes, because I wish to. My other reasons are my own affair," she replied tartly. "But before I go, I wish to speak to you about Elizabeth."

  "What about Bess?" Henry asked, his voice a trace cooler.

  Margaret had stared at her son, startled, and then laughed in his face. "It is time for you to eat some words, Henry. I have heard it rumored that you said Elizabeth would never be crowned. I thought until this moment that you still mistrusted her, but if you are willing to snap at me in her defense, you are merely being stubborn. It is not just to wound Elizabeth's pride to salve your own."

  "I had not thought of it that way. I suppose I did not think much about the question. Elizabeth has never asked to be crowned."

  "Well, you had better think about it. Do you think it would be to a proud woman's taste to ask for what she is certain would be refused?"

  So while Dynham suggested the building of ships of his own and Henry agreed, giving enough of his mind to the subject now to appoint Reginald Bray and Guildford to be responsible for the construction, the other part of his mind considered crowning Elizabeth.

  He found a strange reluctance in himself to do it, and he worried away at the feeling on and off throughout the day. Did he distrust her any longer? Nonsense. Her love for him was unquestionable, and the few times he had offered her the exercise of a shred of political power she had fled the suggestion. In fact, the only duties Elizabeth ever tried to shirk were political ones, and the only times she ever seemed to be bored by Henry were the occasions when he was so absorbed in an affair of state that he tried to talk to her about it.

  That might be partly policy, in that she could have grown interested if he had urged her to apply herself. She could speak with intelligence about music, art, literature, and even philosophy. Henry assumed correctly that Elizabeth understood his jealousy of his power and had closed her mind to state affairs.

  He tried to think objectively about the subject, and decided that he preferred things the way they were. After dealing with statesmen all day long, to have to go to bed with one would be too much. No, Elizabeth would never contest his power. She had made that plain by her voluntary mental withdrawal. Why then should she not be queen if she desired it?

  Was it because the people loved her too much and he was jealous? Perhaps. The thought of the people made Henry more uncomfortable. In fact, it was during a discussion with Morton of the public celebrations over the victory at Stoke that Henry found the answer. Public celebrations were beginning to bore him, and he rather resented having to exhibit himself like a trained bear. He did it without protest and always would do it because the king's person was a public property to some extent. That was it! The queen, too, would belong partly to the people, and Henry discovered that he did not wish to share his wife with the dirty, yelling crowds.

  But if Elizabeth wished it? At that point Morton reproved the king gently for not paying attention, and Henry apologized to him, also, thinking irritably that if he did not soon settle the matter he would end by offending every minister he had. Having agreed rather hastily to everything Morton proposed, Henry rid himself of Morton's company and retired to his closet.

  It was here that he was forced to acknowledge humbly that what Elizabeth desired had never been very important to him. Other things always came first—his needs, his country's needs. The crowning was basically of no real significance. Could he not please her in this when in so many other things he could not even consider her? Well, he could!

  Greatly relieved, Henry turned his attention to the piles of bills being drafted for the session of parliament that would meet in four days. He read thoroughly, making notes of amendments and comments in the margin in his careful handwriting until the dinner hour. Elizabeth sat beside him in high beauty and good humor, but somehow it was not the right time or place to introduce the subject. Henry gave himself with pleasure to listening to her domestic anecdotes, laughing heartily at the exploits of the obstreperous Charles Brandon and the so-far ineffectual efforts of his own son who seemed to be trying to emulate that outrageous young man's behavior.

  "I wish this accursed parliament were over," Elizabeth said suddenly.

  "Why?" Henry asked in surprise.

  "Because you look so tired, and you work harder than ever during the session. How you can read all those dull, endless arguments and bills, I do not know."

  "They may be endless, but I do not find them dull."

  "You say you do not because you are determined to have your finger in every pie. Will you at least come and listen to some music this evening, Harry? I have come across a child that plays the recorder like an angel."

  About to agree, Henry thought of Dynham and Lovell and Edgecombe and Morton and all the others who had proposed bills and expected to have their work commented upon so that they could draft final measures.

  "I cannot, Bess. After the session opens, perhaps I will have more freedom."

  "You sound like a prisoner instead of a king."

  "A king is a kind of prisoner, if he is a good king. But do not waste your sympathy upon me, Bess. I love my confinement." He kissed her cheek and rose. "I will come tonight, as always."

  After dinner Henry saw the French ambassador, who gave him indigestion, and then Maximillian's envoy, who made him bilious. By the time he returned to his closet, he was more than ready to agree to increase the appropriations requested for renewing and adding to the
defenses of Calais and Berwick. The warm feeling of satisfaction he had felt at setting aside his own preferences to please Elizabeth had evaporated. He had made up his mind to have her crowned, and he would stick to the decision; but he resented it.

  When Henry had twice read through a bill, submitted by Dynham concerning stabilization of the currency, without understanding one word, he cursed his faithful treasurer for an idiot. But when he had done the same with a letter from Foxe, who was in Scotland conducting a delicate and complicated negotiation, and could not make sense of it, he began to suspect that he and not his ministers was at fault.

  Henry considered joining his gentlemen. He knew he would merely make them uncomfortable in this humor, but that would not have stopped him if he thought snapping at them would make him feel any better. It was both too late and too early to join Elizabeth, so he changed into his bedrobe and slippers and sat down to while away the time with something that would require no thought. A glance around the table solved the problem at once. He could check through Elizabeth's privy purse accounts.

  Twenty minutes later Henry erupted suddenly into his wife's bedchamber where she was having her hair brushed before retiring. "Elizabeth, what the devil is this?" he asked, thrusting a page of the account book under her nose.

  She withdrew her head to where her eyes would focus. "My account book," she replied mischievously.

  "Get out," Henry snarled, and the ladies fled. He shook the book in Elizabeth's face. "These items. What do they mean?"

  The lines he pointed to read: "Item, for mending Her Grace's gown, 5d. Item, for turning Her Grace's blue gown anew, 2s."

  Plainly Henry was spoiling for a fight and equally plainly he could find no serious cause to be cross with her. Elizabeth considered whether it would be better to calm him or provoke him, found herself in too gay a mood for soothing, and decided for provocation.

  "Would you have me wear a gown with holes, or one frayed at the sleeves and seams?" she asked.