I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie

by J. P. Reedman

  “God’s Nails, on top of his other crimes, he must have been mad too,” I muttered, “but if he saw it all as some jest, the last laugh was on him was it not? But let us not dwell on the fate of this miscreant. The four quarters of him are now spread around the countryside as a warning to any who might take similar actions. His head grins on London Bridge; not so cocky now. He is the least of my concerns…he is in the past. There are greater matters at hand.” I heaved a great sigh. “There is trouble in Calais.”

  “What trouble?”

  “I will tell you as soon as I may but let us assemble all the others, Catesby and Ratcliffe and Norfolk and Surrey, for they need to know all, and I would be glad of their counsel. John Russell must attend too, and Tyrrell and Assheton You must all be informed of what has happened.”

  When my ministers had gathered in a council chamber within the Tower, I told them with great heaviness this latest tale of treason. A night courier had banged on the tower gates before dawn, still green-faced from crossing the rough winter sea on a swift-sailing caravel. Lord Dynham, seeking to assess the situation at Hammes castle after de Vere’s escape and James Blount’s defection, had been denied access by a garrison still loyal to the treacherous runaway Blount. In response, Dynham had prepared to lay siege to the fortress. Not one blow had been dealt, however for Oxford had appeared as if from nowhere, a company of Frenchmen surrounding him, and defended the castle, driving Dynham back.

  My comrades all knew about de Vere’s earlier escape, and why his freedom was worrisome in the extreme, but to have an English possession held against my official, and hence against me, the King, was carrying insurrection to dangerous levels.

  “What will you do, your Grace?” asked Ratcliffe, after he had digested the news that had come from Hammes.

  “Pardon the garrison, I expect,” I said, much more mildly that I felt.

  “Pardon!” Assheton exclaimed, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Ralph was of harsh temperament, one who brooked no insolence from those he deemed his inferiors. He was known to be a hard taskmaster on his own lands, riding out to see that corn-marigolds had not infested the crops in the low-lying places around Sour Carr. He meted out punishment to tenants who had failed to clear the strangling weeds and took their sheep and cattle in reparation for damaged crops.

  “Yes. Pardon them. What else can I do? They are already dwelling in France and their loyalty is highly questionable, though it can probably be brought. I do not want them running to join Tydder and Oxford because I was over-harsh in punishment.”

  “Why not burn the place to the ground, your Grace?” Ralph Assheton thundered. “I would be happy to go out and join the besiegers. Kill them all. They do not deserve life.”

  “Enough of such talk!” I spat. “Then I would indeed look a tyrant! I have decided a harder line must be taken, yes…even as my brother did when he was king. But I must not be foolish either, or alienate men who are already dwelling in enemy territory, with one foot in the French camp…or Henry Tydder’s. No, I will offer the garrison pardons, and if they are accepted, the men will come to no harm. They must return to England, however, and be replaced by others I can trust.”

  “So you will do nothing against them?” Assheton was incredulous. “Nothing at all?”

  “Yes, Ralph.” My voice was low and deadly. “That is what I said. I am sure you heard me.”

  “Your Grace, I protest! They will turn on you again, like the curs they are.”

  “Shut up.” I slammed my hand down upon his as it twitched on the table, balled into a pugnacious fist. He winced as my rings cut into his flesh. “I am the King. Were you upon the throne, you could do as you will. But I am the King. So cross me at your peril!”

  I ground my hand deeper against his; Assheton’s teeth gritted with pain and humiliation. “You’ve been a good servant, Ralph; let’s keep it that way, shall we? Now, tell me, why am I right about the fate of Hammes?”

  “Be...because…” he stuttered, and then spat, “because you are the King.”

  I released him. “Very good. Now I will send to Hammes with those offers of pardon.”

  Henry Tydder…He was in my bedroom, peering through the draperies as I lay abed. Lungs labouring, I groped for the knife I always hid beneath my pillow when I was sleeping alone…but it was gone.

  I had never seen Henry in the flesh but knew it was he; one eye had a turn in it, an evil eye, an accursed eye. Malevolent, it glowed red at me. I heard a snickering laugh and saw a bony, unprepossessing face that looked decades older than Tydder’s twenty-seven years. To look at the dream-Henry was like looking at Death minus the scythe.

  “What do you want?” I shouted at him. He was crawling on my coverlet, on all fours like a beast about to pounce, and suddenly he was all crimson as if dipped in gore—the Red Dragon of Wales!

  “I want to sit on your throne, you murderer of innocents,” he hissed. His tongue sprang out, black, forked. “I want your bloody, ill-gotten crown, usurper!” He pointed at my head and I realised I was wearing my crown.

  “You’ll never have it, you bastard Welshman!” I yelped and flung myself at my adversary, but before I could reach him, his mother Margaret Beaufort flew in wearing the guise of a crow, hooking a noose made of her favourite rosary beads around my neck and twisting….

  I gave a yell…and spilled out of bed onto the cold hard floor. I lay there shaking as my esquires of the body rushed about me, flummoxed by my sudden mad dive to the floor.

  “Are you hurt, your Grace? Do you need a physician?” asked Sir Edward Redman in concern, helping me on with a robe to cover my embarrassing nakedness.

  “No, I am fine… I had a nightmare, a horrible nightmare, but falling from the bed with such force has driven the demons from my mind. Indeed, my thought is clearer than before. I can now see what must be done.”

  I stumbled over to a chair near the fire brazier. “Stoke up the fire; get some more heat in here. I am shivering. Get me some wine. And get me Viscount Lovell.”

  Face white from having been suddenly dragged from bed, Francis stared at me as I leaned against the fireplace, sleep banished from my mind, my whole frame tense and rigid. “I have to deal with Henry. I have been remiss. And now he’s haunting me.”

  “Haunting you? What brought this on, Dickon?”

  “Hammes. And the escape of Oxford.” I sighed. “Edward knew the danger, made sure the Bretons kept Henry in a succession of gloomy castles where he knew not from day to day if Ned would make some deal with Duke Francis and send soldiers to arrest him. By the time I tried to do the same…too late. He was off to our old enemies in France.”

  “We cannot invade France to get him,” Frank said pointedly. “There is no money. It would be futile.”

  “I realise that,” I snapped, “and I’ve got nothing to entice him to England with.” I grimaced. “Once Ned tried to dangle his daughter Bessy before Tydder, trying to entice him to return of his own free will. You can settle on your lands, he had declared, you can marry my daughter as a token of renewed friendship between us.”

  “And Henry did not accept the offer.”

  “When all is said and done, he is no fool. He, or that damned mother of his, remembered that Edward’s word was worthless if matters of state were involved. Remember how he tempted Welles and Dymoke from sanctuary with promises of pardons? Once he got hold of them, Ned hastily had them executed. He also had Henry Holland, our unlucky sister Anne’s despised first husband, thrown overboard on the way back from the French campaign. Tydder was likely earmarked for a similar end on the sea crossing. The scared rat remained in Brittany. Sadly, the idea of marrying Bessy must have appealed to him, though, encouraged by Margaret and maybe by Elizabeth Woodville.”

  “What do you plan to do?” Frank sipped at his wine, dipped some fresh bread into it. Outside the first dawn light was turning the black sky dull blue.

  “Stop treating him as a jest. I had hoped that if I did not take him seriously,
no one else in England would either. An error. A grave one, I fear. He may be no warrior but some of his supporters are. It is time to issue a proclamation naming him among the prime enemies of the realm and declaring against his treachery, letting all men, high and low, know of the unlawful intent of Tydder and his rebels.”

  I glanced over at the candle, burning down, white wax globules forming patterns down its side, and guessed at the time.

  “Summon John Kendall,” I ordered an esquire of the body.

  Within a short time, Kendall was with Frank and me. Puffing and panting, he collapsed at the desk in my chamber, his servants clustering about with his pens and inks. “Your Grace, forgive me my manners,” he panted “Your call was unexpected, and in my old age I sleep the slumber of the dead, for my ears fail me.”

  “It is I who should apologise,” I said, “but my need for your services is urgent. I am to issue a proclamation against my enemies abroad—against the Pretender Henry Tydder!”

  Our sovereign lord has certain knowledge that the Bishop of Exeter, Thomas Grey late Marquis Dorset, Jasper Tydder son of Owen Tydder, John late Earl of Oxford and Sir Edward Woodville, with other rebels attainted by parliament (many of whom are known for murderers, adulterers and extortioners), have forsaken their natural country, taking them first to be under the duke of Brittany, where they promised to him certain things which he thought too abominable to grant. The said traitors, seeing that the duke would not succour them, departed out of his country into France, taking them to be under the obeisance of the King’s ancient enemy Charles; and, to abuse and blind the commons of this realm, the rebels have chosen as their captain one Henry Tydder, son of Edmond Tydder, son of Owen Tydder, which with his insatiable covetousness, stirred by the confederacy of the King’s rebels, bestows upon himself the name and title of royal estate of this realm, where he has in no manner interest, right or colour, as every man well knows.

  Our sovereign lord charges that all of the natural subjects of his realm, like good and true Englishmen, endeavour with all their power for the defence of themselves, their wives, children, goods and inheritances against the malicious acts which the enemies of England have designed for the final destruction of this land. And our said sovereign lord, as a diligent and courageous prince, will put his most royal person to all labour and pain necessary for the resistance and subduing of his enemies to the comfort and surety of all his true and faithful liegemen and subjects….

  This was the proclamation delivered across England. In every town, every village, the bellman or town crier would stand upon the market cross or the green, ringing his bell with fervour and crying ‘Hear ye! Hear ye!” to the local population. Then would they learn of the evil facing England.

  Dictated in impassioned bursts, I was pleased by the vehemence of my creation. I was convinced such stirring words against treason and unrighteous living, would strike deep into the stout hearts of the common Englishman.

  They would fear and abhor the coming of Tydder and support me when the time came. They must.

  But for the moment, there was no fear of my enemy arriving on our shores. A succession of winter storms had come, hammering in off the sea, making passage of ships unsafe.

  It was almost Christmas.

  Within me was the desire to host the most elaborate celebrations anyone had ever attended in living memory, shaming those bawdy festivities Ned held at Eltham so long ago, those jousts where Anthony Woodville had careered around in his silly costumes to the clapping of his enthusiastic Woodville kin. I wanted to show men everywhere that although my heir was dead and an invader threatened the realm, I was not crushed in spirit—

  It would be the most memorable Christmas ever.

  The Great Hall of Westminster palace was filled with garlands of holly and ivy brought in from villages on the outskirts of London. The candle-laden chandeliers were brightly lit, swinging above our heads, while servants stood to attention holding flambeaux to further brighten the room. It was the last and best of the Christmas feasts, the Feast of Epiphany, Twelfth Night, where long ago the Wise Kings brought their gifts to the Christ Child. We had already gambolled and cavorted through other banquets after the Advent fast was over, on Holy Innocents’ Day when the Boy Bishops ruled and on the Feast of Fools where even priests wore masks and ate sausages before the altar…but the feast of Twelfth Night would be the most splendid of all.

  Anne and I sat on a dais at the end of the Great Hall, wearing our crowns and our best jewels. Although money was short, once again we had pawned plate and trinkets left over from Edward’s reign and spent a tidy sum on our clothing—nigh as much as last year’s hefty £1300. I wore a gown of deep red velvet patterned with small sunbursts and there were golden tips upon my shoes and a collar of rubies like droplets of blood around my neck. My hair been washed and curled neatly upon my shoulders; and the barber had shaved me but an hour before the first subtleties had been brought to the table as a signal that the feast was to begin.

  Beside me, Anne wore a magnificent, flowing creation of golden brocade with dagged sleeves lined in ermine. Its train was so long, it had to be carried by four women. Her tiny waist was cinched with pearls, and around her throat was a golden collar studded with diamond roses—this replaced her favourite necklace, the one graven with the magic word Anizapta, which had mysteriously vanished when we went to Middleham after little Ned’s death. No amount of searching had located it; it was as if, like our son, the beautiful talisman against illness was part of the past, lost forever, protective no longer. Our past, our happy past, now gone.

  Despite her beauteous array, something, however, was not right with Anne’s well-being. Despite having a dispensation to eat meat and all the richest food I could provide for her, she seemed thinner and smaller than ever, a little doll sitting on the throne beside me, her face carefully painted to give it colour and vibrancy.

  Next to her Edward’s eldest girl, Bessy, looked as plump and round as a village maid, bursting out in every way with good health and womanly promise. Bessy had recently entered Anne’s service as a lady-in-waiting; part of my promise that my brother’s daughters would come to court and be properly inducted as ladies before finding them suitable husbands. So Bessy was with us this Christmas, smiling and high-coloured, serving her mistress upon the dais, excited to be out in the vibrant world again and away from the cloistered sanctuary she had endured with her mother and siblings.

  Anne had purchased far too much cloth for her gown; she had grown so small that such a vast quantity of material was not needed. She had summoned me to her solar a few weeks back and asked my permission to have the remainder made into a dress for Bessy. “It will go with her golden hair,” she said mater of factly. “She will be the most beautiful maid at the Christmas feast…”

  “No, Anne, that should be you,” I told her. “You are the Queen.”

  She laughed, slightly bitter. “I am an old woman compared to Bessy. An old woman wearing a pretty jewelled crown.”

  “Oh Anne, I bid you not speak so.” I frowned at her.

  “I did but jest, Richard; I will hold my tongue from now onwards. But you did not answer my question! Can Bessy have a dress made from the spare brocade? I think it would be a kindly gesture; she was a princess once, after all. And think, men will cast their eyes on her with admiration…You should be thinking about finding a husband for her. That would put paid to Henry Tudor’s plans to wed a Plantagenet. I am not certain why you have not done so already.”

  “As if I have not had enough to deal with this past year without worrying about my brother’s bastard daughter.” I was waspish. “The girls and their mother only emerged from sanctuary at the end of February past. I had my own daughter’s marriage to secure, to say naught of a dead son and a sea battle with Scotland.”

  Anne had winced and cast down her gaze, head drooping; guilt pricked me and I took her hand, little and cold, warming it with my own. “Of course you may give her the cloth of gold. I agree, she will loo
k most comely at the feast. Though not as comely as you, in my eyes.”

  And so here we were on Twelfth Night, Anne in gold and Bessy likewise in gold, both with their hair flowing loose, Anne’s beneath a crown as befitting a queen, Bessy’s beneath a berry-laden garland in the style of an unwed maiden. Anne had always been rightly proud of her hair, so long, she could sit upon it, but this eve, in the flickering light of the flambeaux, it looked dull and lank, almost as if soiled with sweat although she had been bathed. Bessy’s tresses, on the other hand, floated down her back in a shining cascade, golden as a burnished coin, as autumn fruits, as dripping honey….

  I ceased to pay attention to either Anne or Bessy as a huge pie was hauled into the Great Hall on a decorated wagon. Shaped like a crown, it was covered in a layer of silver foil. Gasps and exclamations of awe came from the attending lords and ladies as they wondered what delicacies might be hidden within such a wondrous shell.

  “I will be the first to cut the pie!” I rose from my seat and drew my dagger. With a theatrical flourish, I approached the pie and plunged the weapon into its heart, cutting deep through the heavy crust. The pasty crumbled away and to everyone’s amazement, blackbirds burst out in a mad rush of wings and flew in panic around the chamber, setting the chandeliers whirling overhead and knocking off William Stanley’s conical green felt hat…which unfortunately landed in a dish of half-eaten frumenty. He fished it out with bad grace then threw it on the floor in disgust.

  Then the minstrels began to play, and the servers under the stern eye of the stewards brought out more subtleties. The finest piece was a fortress made in imitation of the ‘Castle of Love’ once crafted for a banquet held by Amadeus Duke of Savoy. It had four towers with bartizans and machicolations and contained a whole swan, complete with plumage, a pike cut into parts, and a boar’s head painted white and silver. My standard flew on every sugared battlement, and inside the miniature courtyard was a fountain that spewed a deep rich wine.