I was sorry that Anne was not at my side to see these marvels and to hear the shouts of happy crowds that greeted me as my entourage of lords and churchmen and heralds entered Reading—but she had fallen ill a day before we were set to depart, with stinging red rashes blooming upon her legs. The doctors advised she should rest and stay a while at Windsor to recover, though she promised to meet me, come what may, at Warwick, when my progress wended its way to the castle of her birth.
From Reading, I turned to Oxford, the city of learning. It hung before me like a half-born dream in the morning mist, hundreds of spires flaming gold against the eggshell sky. It was hard to believe that in this centre of great learning, violence was common—the ordinary folk frequently battled the gowned scholars of Oxford, separating the two factions into Town and Gown. Once, nigh on a hundred years before my birth, a tavern brawl sparked off serious bloodshed, where townsmen armed with bows slew scores of scholars as they chased them through the streets. The massacre so distressed the scholarly community, it was commemorated from then on as the Battle of St Scholastica’s Day, and the town’s mayor and bailiffs were ordered to attend a mass for the souls of the slain every anniversary in remembrance and in penance.
But there would be no conflict today. Both scholars and the commons thronged the streets, side by side, to watch as I processed to the doors of Magdalen College, where William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, was waiting for me, having journeyed there some days before make the college ready for my visit.
Magdalen had already received patronage from Edward during his reign; a statue of him, stern-faced, gazed down at me from above the gate. On Edward’s royal visit, Bishop Waynflete, founder of the college, purchased eight hundred books for the library.
I could see Waynflete standing below the curving arch of the college door, a thin older man with swept back hair of dark steel-grey that almost looked blue in the burgeoning sunlight. He had a craggy, lean face with brows that bristled out beyond twinkling, intelligent blue eyes; the face of a man of learning, I deemed, although he had long been a supporter of Lancaster and old Mad Harry Six! He had, however, made peace and received his pardon from Ned.
“Your Grace…” Waynflete made a sweeping bow, his long black sleeves flapping like crow’s wings as he ushered me into precinct of the college.
Almost immediately, with boundless enthusiasm he began tell me about the daily life of the scholars of Magdalen. “I keep them straight, Your Grace,” he informed me. “No hawks, hounds, cards, or dicing games are permitted in Magdalen, nor must the scholars wear unseemly or gaudy dress. Latin must be spoken. No fellow may be absent for more than sixty days, and not more than ten fellows are to be absent at one time. If one wishes to leave even for but one night, permission must be granted by the President and the dean. I do not tolerate lingering and loitering in the great hall after dinner is served—save on saints' days, of course, when a fire is kindled expressly for the scholar’s warmth.”
“It sounds a fair and just regime,” I said with a small smile. We were walking down an arcaded walkway, similar to cloisters in a monastery; through gaps in the stonework, I could see a deer park beyond, stretching towards the river, with shadows of the fleeting deer dark between the tree boles. “It is no wonder the college produces men of great piety and learning. I, too, desire to learn, for I believe a ruler must have knowledge in order to govern well and guide his people. It is my wish that I hear the scholars of Magdalen debate weighty matters on theology or philosophy, for their debates are much famed.”
Waynflete beamed, evidently pleased that my interest extended beyond just being a royal presence and guest at his table. “Your Grace, it will be done. Tomorrow two disputations will take place in the hall—Master Grocin shall oppose Dr John Taylor, our Professor of Sacred Theology. It should be a lively debate; both men are eminent scholars, and I foresee a great future for William Grocin if he continues upon the path of learning he has taken.”
“Splendid!” I said, rubbing my hands together. I would enjoy hearing those learned men spar, not with swords but with intellect…and it would take my mind off what might be transpiring in London at the Tower.
So early the next morn, shortly after sun up and after breaking my fast with bread and wine, I left my allotted chambers in the college, and like some youthful scholar rather than a king, settled myself into a rather uncomfortable wooden chair to hear the debate between Grocin and Taylor. The Case of Pride and the Passions of the Will by John Dun Scotus was the subject of the philosophical debate; and for theology, there was The Source of Divine Production.
Both debaters were excellent, fluent in speech and convincing in their arguments, and once they finished their arguments on the floor, I rose from my seat and clapped their efforts with true appreciation. “Greatly have I enjoyed hearing the words of learned men in this manner! Dr Taylor, I bequeath upon you a buck and a hundred shillings; and for you Master Grocin, there will also be a buck, and five marks.”
I turned to face Bishop Waynflete, standing in attendance near my seat. “And for the table of the master of Magdalen College, I will be sending drink and game as a token of my enduring gratitude.”
Approval and appreciation shone in Waynflete’s eyes. “Your Grace,” he murmured in a low voice, “had you been other than you are, I think we might have welcomed you here as a scholar. Your interest in academia and knowledge of the subjects we study is clear; the interest is written in your noble face.”
“When very young a life of learning or the cloth was an option,” I said. “I was the youngest son of my noble parents. But fate played a different hand, and God has decreed my estate.”
“Indeed, your Grace.” Waynflete gave a little bow. “Long live the King unto eternity.” He smiled, suddenly eager. “Would you care to listen to another debate? It could be arranged.”
I sighed. “I wish I could, Bishop, but I must be on my way. I am expected at Woodstock this even. But…” I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, “I could return on the morrow for a brief time. I would like to see the eight hundred books my brother King Edward gave to Magdalen…and I would like to practice my Latin.”
“It would, once again, be an honour, Your Grace. I will await your return.”
It was said that upon my leaving that day, the Bishop recorded kind words in the college register:
Vivat Rex Aeternum.
That night I stayed at the ancient Palace of Woodstock. Henry I had kept lions and leopards there once, within a vast parkland enclosed by miles of stout walls. Henry II, the minstrels sing, kept something even sweeter at Woodstock—a beautiful mistress called Rosamund the Fair, hidden in a maze from his furious wife, the indomitable Eleanor of Aquitaine. I thought of Jane Shore, also mistress of a king, still locked in Ludgate at my command, but at least Jane in her miserable prison would not end up poisoned, as Rosamund was rumoured to have been.
My time at the Palace was brief, as I had promised Waynflete I would return to Oxford, but I had a wrong to put right in the village of Woodstock.
Several years ago, Edward had seized a wide area of Wychwood forest, annexing it to the parklands of the Palace. The locals had been greatly grieved, and petitioned the King for its return, to no avail. Edward would not listen, would not concede a single foot of land.
I was going to give it back. I had no need of it.
In the vast hall of Woodstock palace, painted blue and gold and bisected by six huge pillars that supported the roof, I wrote out the deeds and documents that would see the land deforested and returned to the common man.
Later, as I lay abed in my apartments, within the Tower Edward had attached to the King’s Chamber, the stillness of the summer’s night brought the sound of celebration in the local villages. Sleep abandoned, I leaned on the casement in my nightshirt and listened to their merriment, while a burnt orange moon soared above Woodstock Park.
I had done the right thing by accepting the crown. Men had loved Edward, even when he did them wrong, as at Woo
dstock. Maybe one day, they would love me as much, despite any of my own failings.
Next evening found me riding with glad heart from a pleasant afternoon in Oxford to Francis Lovell’s home at Minster Lovell. The house had undergone extensive renovations and Frank was eager to show them to me. As my entourage crossed the arched bridge that spanned the foaming Windrush, I caught sight of the church of St Kenelm, where Frank’s ancestors lay buried, and the topmost tower of Minster Lovell with the huge dovecote looming behind.
Drawing near the main entrance of the hall, I could see Francis waiting to greet me dressed in all the opulence of England’s new Lord Chamberlain and Chief Butler—his olive-green doublet open over a linen chemise trimmed with gold braid, leather thigh-boots and a round crimson hat made of velvet and stitched with gems. Musicians spilled across the lawns and trumpets blared a triumphant fanfare of welcome. Affrighted by the cacophony, white doves soared up out of the dovecote and filled the sky with a haze of beating wings.
Francis went down on his knee to me. Dismounting, I raised my friend with my hand, and embraced him as a brother in front of all the company assembled there. “It is good to see you, Frank,” I whispered into his ear. It had not been long since we had parted but it was different at his lavish Oxfordshire home. Here, in private, we could be but Dickon and Frank, not the King and the Viscount.
“I am glad to see you too, your Grace,” said Francis. “Will you not come inside the hall? My wife Anna is waiting to greet you?”
“Is she?” I asked, in surprise.
“Well, probably not, truth be told, knowing Anna,” Francis murmured, embarrassed but honest. “With all respect due, Richard, she would probably prefer if you were some miserable Friar telling tales of the world’s sinfulness and woe. She could then wash your blistered feet in some kind of penance and complain heartily of the chore later.”
“She can wash my feet if she so wishes!” I said cheerily.
“I doubt that would satisfy her, even if you are King of England, for she would not dare raise her voice in complaint afterwards!”
We passed down a cobbled path into the hall’s entrance, under the ornamented vaulted ceiling that formed a tunnel leading to the Great Hall with its huge fireplaces and plastered walls. Anna Lovell and her ladies were waiting, solemn face in their high-coned headdresses. Adorned in stiff beige brocade, Anna was blending into the less colourful areas of the walls.
She did a round of unwieldy curtseying and mumbling of pleasantries before Francis rescued me from her rather uncomfortable presence. “Come this way, your Grace; I have much to show you. I would have you see how fine Minster Lovell has become; I dare say the finest home in all Oxfordshire!”
Francis seemed eager to extricate us both from Anna; he and his wife were as near-strangers unless protocol dictated otherwise, and it must have been trying for him when he returned to oversee the Minster’s recent renovations. Trying too, when the woman he truly desired, that mysterious mistress I’d never met, was far from him in the household of his sister Frideswide.
Leaving the splendour of the Great Hall, we crossed the courtyard, its cobbles gleaming where they had been washed and swept in preparation for my arrival. Proudly Francis guided me through the Minster’s parlour and guest chambers and his private chapel upon the first floor, with its bright murals. Then he gave me a tour of the kitchens, where servants were in busy preparation for the evening’s banquet, and took me out to the stables, where I admired his collection of fine horses. I had given him one or two of them from my own stock.
Lastly, he showed me the Minster’s crowning glory—the new Great Tower in the south-west corner, overlooking the green banks of the River Windrush. Higher than all the other ranges, the Tower consisted of four stories, the lower two reached by a broad staircase and the upper two by a turret that attached the structure to the west wing of the Minster.
“What do you think, Richard?” Frank beamed with pride. Soft light was shining on the Tower’s stonework, giving it a warm golden glow. Long shadows stretched from its walls and made an illusory dark bridge across the swell of burbling Windrush.
“A place of much beauty. It is worthy of you, my friend. May it give you much happiness.”
“Tonight Richard, you shall be the first to sleep on the uppermost floor of the Tower. The first guest to grace the new building…and the King of England, no less!”
After the evening’s banquet, I retired early for I was weary and my back ached. The evening had grown very muggy and warm, breathless; trees along the riverbank hung still, leaves motionless, dripping condensation into the water’s swell.
Despite my fine surroundings, my comfortable bed with its huge carven frame, I found I could not sleep. I drowsed for an hour of two, but tossed and turned and had vague uneasy dreams that fled from my mind before I was able to make any sense of them.
Quite late, I clambered out of bed and stumbled to the window, seeking air. I glanced at the moon, noting its position in the heavens; I guessed it must be nigh on one in the morning. My squires, waking immediately, glanced at me with expectation.
“Go,” I said to one, “summon the Lord Lovell unless he is sound abed…” He won’t be with Anna, I can assure you of that, I thought, when I saw the youth’s slightly dismayed expression. “Here, you, Matthew, Elyas; dress me, but only simply, mind.”
They found me a loose gown, blue so dark it was almost black. It was loose on my thin frame, which helped in the heat, though the fur at the cuffs rankled. Francis, duly summoned, appeared at the doorway, dressed now in simple, more comfortable attire, a long brown gown that was fit for relaxation than the feast. By the look of his tangled hair, he might have been sleeping. “Is aught amiss, your Grace?”
“No. But I cannot sleep.”
“You ever had that problem, Dickon,” he said, falling into informal address.
“Yes. Will you walk with me outside a while, till the heat abates?”
“It would be my honour.”
We descended into the gardens and walked together along the riverbank. Reeds waved, fish slip-flopped in the shadows. The water, deep emerald green by day, had assumed the hue of obsidian. The ghost of the moon trembled on the wavelets created by the leaping fish.
“Do you remember swimming in Black Dub?” I said to Francis. “Back in Middleham?”
“I remember being near enough drowned there a few times by other boys,” Frank said wryly.
“Do they swim in the river here?”
“Boys? No doubt the kitchen lads do, when their duties are over. Probably up near the bridge, though. Out of sight of my windows. They wouldn’t like me to see what they got up to, and I dare say the reverse is also true!”
I clasped my hands behind my back. “Who would have thought that two scrawny young donzels of Warwick would rise so high, eh, my friend?”
“Who indeed?” he smiled. “Fate is strange, and none knows what God has planned.”
For some reason a melancholy suddenly crept over me, as I thought of the simpler days of our youth, when the worst we might expect was a beating from our masters. I did not quite understand why I felt such a sense of loss, of longing—I, who had been raised to the highest estate from being but the youngest son, the runt of the Duke of York’s litter.
“It is hot,” I murmured, plucking at my collar. “If things were as simple as they once were, I would strip off my gown and leap into yonder flowing river!”
Frank laughed quietly. “It would shock more than just Anna to have the King of England frolicking naked in the stream!”
We walked a bit further, dew wetting the hems of our long robes. A little wind picked up; the tree boughs swayed in gentle cadence. A soft night, with a sky of black velvet; a night where time seemed to linger, holding still for one happy moment, before it swirled away downstream, moving inexorably towards the unknown future.
Suddenly I heard a sound, faint but growing stronger, out on the road beyond the boundary wall of the Minster. I pla
ced my hand on Francis’s arm; my fingers tightened. I could feel he was as tense as I. “Frank, what do I hear?”
His face had grown pale, intense. “Horses. Look yonder, through the trees. Cresting the bridge. Two men on swift mounts. They will be at the gate in a few moments. I am expecting no one.”
A sense of heaviness descended on my shoulders. The wind, rising ever more, suddenly gusted and leaves fluttered around me. “It will be bad news,” I said, “and it will be for me.”
An attempt to free the Princes had happened, just as Buckingham predicted. The plotters had planned to set fires as distractions about the city and in the Tower, and then snatch Edward’s sons away while everyone was running about in a panic. It was a silly plan, ill-conceived and foolish, and the perpetrators had been swiftly apprehended and taken to secure prisons, where they would await their fates.
Calling my secretary John Kendall to me, I hastily dictated a letter to Chancellor John Russell: We understand that certain persons of late have taken on them an enterprise, as we doubt not that you have heard, and they have been taken and are in ward. We desire that you make letters of commission to such persons as our council shall be advised, to sit upon them and to proceed to the due execution of our laws. Fail you not hereof, as our perfect trust is in you. Given under our signet at this Manor of Minster Lovell, the 29th day of July.
Then, privately, and in my own hand, I penned a short letter to Harry Stafford. “I see it has happened. Oversee punishment. Do what you must. Make it safe. I will speak to you soon. Maybe in our city of Gloucester? R.R.
Eyes heavy with lack of sleep, heart heavy knowing what had occurred, I watched as my couriers departed the gates of Minster Lovell and galloped away into the hazy darkness, bearing my missives to Harry in London. Francis was beside me, silent but supportive. Lord Stanley loitered nearby, face inscrutable as ever. He caught me looking in his direction and glanced down at his nails, pretending to clean them with his dagger-tip.
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 13
