I glanced towards the Duke of Buckingham at my shoulder. Startled, I noticed that he was so overwhelmed by the positive response he was almost crying….
More speeches in my favour were held all over London; preachers and theologians spoke at St Margaret’s, Westminster by the Abbey, and at Spital Cross near the Hospital of St Mary’s. (I wondered if Elizabeth Woodville, or Dame Grey as she would now be known, reassuming her proper married name, could hear the tumult and cheering as she sat amidst her pilfered goods in the sanctuary.) I was less than pleased, though, to hear that the ridiculous tales of Edward’s supposed bastardy were being raised once again and brought to the fore in several of the speeches. Blayborne the Archer’s son. My mother would be furious. I was not terribly pleased myself.
I turned to Harry, who had appointed himself the duty of arranging for the preachers to speak. “What in Christ’s name was that all about, Harry? Maligning my mother? I had no wish for those ludicrous slurs to be resurrected! George used them, I am not George.”
“You will be King,” said Harry, not looking me in the eyes, strangely unaware that if he already thought of me as King, he was speaking to me with the deepest disrespect. “I am sure Dame Cecily your good mother would not mind a bit of embellishment to see her last living son on the throne.”
“As opposed to her own grandson?” I said between gritted teeth. “Christ’s fingernails, Harry, I am living at her castle!”
Harry said nothing. He was still watching the crowds, smiling. Strangely, he now reminded me less of George but of another man I once had loved. His demeanour, as London clamoured for a new King, reminded me of Warwick, known as Kingmaker.
Later, I rode back to Baynard’s Castle. Standing on the waterfront, with the murky Thames sucking its feet, the castle was a combination of comfortable house and fortress. My sire had once kept four hundred gentlemen and soldiers there to do his bidding. I had fond memories of Edward visiting me at Baynard’s when I was a small boy, and it was at Baynard’s that Ned accepted the crown….So long ago; I was not yet nine when Ned was crowned.
Four stout wings of deep red stone encased a cobbled courtyard, forming a trapezoidal shape. The north wall was more ancient than anything else on the site and had been utilised by the builders out of an earlier ruin; George told me the Romans had raised the wall and buried babies under it to make it stand fast. When I was small and impressionable I had stood in the grounds in winter and thought I could hear those dead babies wailing. It was just the wind over the battlements, of course.
Entering the Great Hall, I was confronted by my mother Duchess Cecily. Since my father’s demise, she had retreated into religion and oft spoke of retiring permanently to her abode at Berkhamsted to devote herself more fully to meditation and prayer, away from the noise, distraction and sinfulness of London. Since the demise of my father (and after she lost influence with Ned after his marriage to Elizabeth) she had grown to admire the life of the mystic, the solitude of the cloistered nun.
But on this day, she stood before me in her best brocade, with a high horned headdress and her face painted and still showing the remnants of the beauty she was once famed for. She was dressed as the mother of the King.
Facing me, she was unsmiling, her eyes hard as the diamonds that glimmered about her throat; diamond roses of the House of York. With a curt word, she sent her servants scurrying from the hall and I was left facing her, alone.
She walked up to me; my mother was short, even shorter than I, which to some made Ned’s great height even more extraordinary…but there were tall Neville kinsmen and Margaret towered too, and none questioned her parentage in they way they questioned Ned’s.
With her cool eyes, she looked me up and down, attired in purple, burned slightly across my nose by the sun, the dust from the London streets in my hair…a feverish longing clear upon my face.
“Richard…” she said, her voice deceptively gentle, almost sweet.
I stepped towards her, to take her hands as a loving son.
She lifted her ring-heavy hand and slapped me. Hard. And slapped me again.
Speechless, I bent over, my hand instinctively going to my stinging cheek.
“If you are to be acclaimed King of England in the days to come,” she said coldly, “do not presume to slander the woman who bore you, who will be the mother of the King.”
“It was no order of mine to speak thus,” I argued. “You surely know that.”
“Then learn to control your supporters. Such acts will do you no favours. Blayborne indeed! As if I would lie with a common archer.” Cecily lifted her skirts gracefully and glided from the hall, leaving me standing alone, my face red and burning from her slap.
My mother was angry with me.
But…she had called me King.
The next day Buckingham went forth to meet with the nobility and convince them of my right to the crown. As he fared about the city, I lay low in Baynard’s castle, not wishing to be seen overmuch in case any man thought I was exerting control over the Duke’s actions. Couriers arrived hourly, keeping me apprised of Harry’s progress, the responses he received from the nobles either yea or nay. Some were against, some unsure, but many…many…
Harry’s work was not finished even when all lords and knights had been spoken to. Once he had the majority on his side, he hastened to the Guildhall to speak to the prominent citizens of London, the Mayor, the Aldermen, the merchants. I chafed in Baynard’s, waiting impatiently for news, thinking of my friend within the Great Hall, speaking with his golden tongue on my behalf below the carven figures of the old Guardians of London, the giants Gog and Magog.
When he came to Baynard’s in the evening to greet me, Harry immediately began boasting of the success of his speech to the Guildhall audience. “I had them captivated, Richard!” His eyes gleamed with fervour. “I spoke like one of God’s heavenly messengers; indeed, one could say my words seemed divinely inspired! The Londoners cheered me, which is to say, they cheered for you! I was so eloquent my friend, so fluent in my speech that I did not even have need to spit between sentences!”
The day waned, and the air was filled with the scent of Midsummer bonfires and the river and the city and the pomanders that freshened the room; a heady brew. I drank to the health of my Lord of Buckingham and he to me…and he called me his sovereign lord.
I said naught to Anne yet, for she had almost fallen in a faint when it became clear that I had the right to be King. She was also busy tending to her sister’s son, Edward of Warwick. She already doted upon the poor, gormless child, son to her tragic lost sister Isabel, and had set about trying to cajole him to learn with sweetmeats, entertainments and new clothes.
The night soon passed, and the fires burned to grey ash; London smelt of the pyre and the air was fogged. I rose before dawn, laved my face, and as I stood in the cool grey morning being dressed and shaved, I knew that with the rising of the sun Rivers, Grey and Vaughan would be dead, beheaded as traitors of Pontefract. And a few hours later Buckingham and my chief supporters would gather at Westminster for a great meeting of the Lords and Commons. At last a decision would be made upon my accession, yea or nay, by the Lords Temporal, Spiritual and the Commons, and if it was ‘yea’ then my right would be set down upon paper, to prove that I had not unlawfully taken my nephew’s crown.
Hours dragged but at last I saw a herald at the gate and he wearing Harry’s colours. Solemn-faced, my heart a drum against my ribs, I had him brought before me. “What do they say, herald? What say the Lord Temporal and Spiritual, and the Commons?”
“Your Grace,” the man panted, for he had ridden at great speed from Westminster. “It was a ‘yea.”
I went to Anne in her chambers at once. Inside she was with the boy, Edward of Warwick. Save for his curls, he bore no resemblance to his father, my brother, George; he was broad-faced and pink as a tantony pig, with very fair brows. He was playing with some gewgaw made for a child of a much younger age but he looked happy.
“Anne…” I nodded towards the door.
Anne called to young Warwick’s nursemaids and they gathered him up and took him from the room. He began to cry as he was directed away; he appeared already quite attached to his aunt.
Once we were alone, Anne stared at the flagstones. Her cheeks were flushed; I could hear the gentle rasp of her breath. Although she had spent her day playing with her sister’s son, she wore one of her best gowns, stitched close to her trim form, and around her neck hung a cross of rubies in gold. She clutched it in one hand, perhaps not even realizing she did so.
“The Lords and commons have spoken,” I said softly.
“And?” her voice trembled on her lips.
“Tomorrow they will come to Baynard’s to petition me to take the throne.”
A sudden gasp came from her as if someone had struck her and knocked the air from her lungs. In a rush of silk and brocade, she sank to her knees before me, hand pressed to her mouth, half-fainting with the shock, half in supplication and reverence…for I was King.
“Anne, Anne…” I reached my hands to her, took her shaking fingers—cold, so cold despite the summer’s eve—and lifted her to her feet. “My love, you do not need to kneel to me. I will be King…and you will be my Queen, my beloved consort.” I gazed hard into her face. “Your father wanted you to be Queen, hence he married you to Marguerite’s son. That honour was wrest from you by Dame Fortune, now the Wheel had turned and it is offered to you once more. Through me, your loving husband.”
“I never wanted such position when I was with him…” she murmured hoarsely, eyes clouding as he remembered her brief union with Edward of Lancaster. “But now, with you at my side, I think…I think I do want it!”
Wondering, I shook my head. “I never even dreamed this day would come. I was the last son born to my parents, their last living child, born to be…nothing at all. Edward’s helpmeet, no more. The small one, the crooked one. That I should come to the throne…Surely it is the doing of God? Surely this is His will, a punishment on Edward’s progeny through his unwholesome living?”
“Yes, it must be.” She pressed closed to me, her head resting on my shoulder. “It is God’s will that you are King…and I am Queen.”
“Our son will be Prince of Wales. And one day he will be King.”
Anne was weeping openly now, her fingernails digging into my doublet. “Richard, Richard, I have never wanted anything more!”
“Nor I!” I pulled her to me, and desire leapt up, burning like fire. Carnal, yes, but more than mere fleshly need. My desire blended all things in that mad moment, Anne’s body wound round mine, that blessed receptacle that had borne our son; the prize that hung before me, glittering, the crown and sceptre; the challenge of making England whole again, unblighted by internal war, the Scots and even the French in submission….
Outside the thunder was roaring again as it did most every night after a steaming day. Its claps shivered the dull red turrets of the castle towers. One particularly loud blast made the windows shake. The sky, heavy with domed clouds, turned a sickly umber hue.
Anne breathed against my mouth, shuddering. “That sound…so sudden, it was terrifying! Is this right? Could God be angry at us?”
“No, no, fear nothing, my love, the tumult in the sky…It is merely the trumpets of angels announcing a new king, a new age of England.”
I pushed her onto her bed, green canopied, the colour of life. She had put dried rose petals all about, white ones; I smelt their heady fragrance, sweet, even sickly. I tore off Anne’s headdress, and her hair streamed out over the delicate coverlet, drifting in fair clouds as the storm breeze roared through the gap of the open window. I covered her mouth with mine, plundering its warmth, while my hands pressed against her small breasts, well armoured by the tight bodice of her gown.
“Richard, my dress…” She pointed to stitching where she was tightly sewn into the gown; a most annoying fashion that needed to be unpicked by her ladies. I could not wait for that.
“It doesn’t matter. I need you now,” I murmured into her fragrant hair, and dragged her skirts to her waist. Her thighs gleamed white, illuminated by the flashes of the lightning. Torrents of rain were coming down outside now; trickling through the crack of the window and puddling like tears on the floor.
Anne made a small noise as I took her, not with much gentleness, but with a passion that grew with the intensifying storm. She felt my urgency too, and the rising excitement, her lips parted with pleasure and her hips ground against mine as we strove together on the bed. As thunder roared once again and the very air around us seemed to sing and sizzle with the storm’s ferocity and with our sudden ardour, words tore from my mouth with every motion of my body, words I had once feared to say:
“Anne…Christ…. I…oh God, I want…I want to…be…King!”
The next day Baynard was under siege. Not by an enemy army but by the crowds that swarmed around the walls eager to see a King made. Nobles, commoners, gentry, merchants; all clustered near the castle gatehouse as Harry Buckingham, sporting a jaunty bycocket hat surmounted by an enormous swan’s feather plume, processed into the inner bailey surrounded by the lords of the land, the doctors of divinity, the men of government and of trade.
Dismounting his huge grey stallion, Harry stood at the foot of the stair that led up to the first floor entrance of the keep, a kingly figure himself in his sky-blue silk houpelland with trailing sleeves lined with what looked suspiciously like cloth of gold. He cleared his throat and unrolled the parchment he held in his hands.
Listening from my place, hidden behind the great oak balustrade on the landing, I heard him began to read, heard the words ‘pretensed marriage’ and then, “The marriage of Edward IV and Dame Elizabeth Grey was contrived by sorcery and witchcraft, committed by said Elizabeth and by her mother Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford.”
Buckingham continued in his ringing tones, as the crowd murmured, disturbed by the mention of such evil dealings: “The pretensed marriage was made secretly, without Banns, in a profane place, contrary to the custom of the Church of England.”
Harry halted; peering down from my hiding spot, I saw him glance from face to face, daring them to contradict what he was about to say. “At the time of the contract of the pretensed marriage, King Edward stood married and troth plighted to one Dame Eleanor Boteler, formerly Talbot, daughter of the old Earl of Shrewsbury with whom the same King Edward had made a pre-contract of marriage. Therefore King Edward and the said Elizabeth lived together sinfully and damnably in adultery, against the Law of God and Church…and their children are bastards and unable to inherit or claim anything by inheritance, by the Law and custom of England.”
Harry’s voice grew louder, ringing up towards heaven. He told of how Edward of Warwick, under his father’s attainder, was ‘barred of all right and claim to the Crown.”
He then went on, sweeping around in his gaudy gown like an actor upon a stage, reading a catalogue of the ills found in the last years of Edward’s reign: “This land was ruled by self-will and pleasure, fear and dread! So too was no man sure of his life, land and livelode, nor of his wife, daughter or servant, and every good maiden and woman stood in dread to be ravished and defouled!”
Finally, he stopped, wiped his mouth on his billowing sleeve and gazed up the staircase towards my hiding spot. He nodded slightly. It was my turn to come forward, the principal player upon this great stage.
I had dressed simply, but my doublet was a rich, deep purple, near enough royal colour. The Cross of St George, limned in garnets, blazed on the brim of my hat. I tried to draw myself up to my full height and stand as straight as I might, my crooked back and raised shoulder concealed beneath careful padding. I knew I had not Edward’s imposing frame or manly beauty, but I would make the best of what I had.
Harry bowed his head in my direction and continued his oration in a voice that seemed thick with emotion. “Here is the undoubted son and heir of Richard, late Duke of York, who unlike his
brothers was born upon English soil! We humbly pray and desire, your noble Grace, that, according to the election of the Three Estates, by your true inheritance you will take upon you the Crown and Royal Dignity, belonging to you as Right as well as by Inheritance and by lawful Election…”
I knew my face was probably the colour of curds and not exactly delightful to behold. I tried to envision Edward here in this same spot, claiming his crown. He would have laughed and been merry, the Sunne in Splendour, beautiful and confident. I had lived as his shadow so long, but now I must steel myself and emerge into that light too.
I could not afford to appear too grasping, too greedy of this honour; already some men disputed the truth of the pre-contract with Eleanor Talbot and would call me usurper of my nephew’s kingdom. Hesitating, I gazed out across the sea of expectant faces in the courtyard—hundreds of them, blurring into one great heaving mass.
With humility—and I did feel humbled, that was no pretence—I bowed my head. “If it is the wish of the Three Estates and of the people of England, yea, I, Richard of the House of York will gladly take upon me the Crown and the responsibility of this great Realm, unto my death.”
Cheers broke forth, like a tide breaking over a dam. I stood frozen upon the stairs, overwhelmed as the overenthusiastic crowd surged up to the foot of the stairwell and was driven back by men with halberds. Harry Stafford mounted the stairs beside me, his voice low and triumphant: “It is done, Richard. We have prevailed!”
It was June 26, 1483, and I, Richard Plantagenet, now stood before man and God as King of England and France and Lord of Ireland.
The day was not over, however. With Buckingham guiding me, I descended the staircase and a great caparisoned horse, white and golden maned, was brought for me. Mounting, I rode from Baynard’s with Harry at my side and all my lords and supporters forming a glorious cavalcade around me. Once we had reached Westminster Hall, I dismounted again and entered, where I sat in the marble seat of King’s Bench. Openly beaming, John Howard stood on my right; on my left, my sister Elizabeth’s husband, the Duke of Suffolk, also looking much pleased.
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 9
