A mutter passed through the assembly. I hated them. They saw their king’s grief and displeasure but I knew many of them were unmoved, unfeeling, maybe even amused by such a display. Tears? Richard, the murderer of his nephews, suspected poisoner of his queen, could shed no real tears! No matter what I did, they would find an evil reason why I did it; no matter what I said, they would claim my words were false, spoken only to deceive.
I composed myself, carried on. If they believed Richard Plantagenet was harsh, so would I be, in order to impart my message to the people. “Henceforth I give command that any persons caught passing untrue talk will be brought unto the Mayor to be charged and punished.”
Then I spun upon my heel and hastened from the Hall, the malaise lifting from my limbs as I strove to get away from the scene of my humiliation and reach the courtyard where my entourage waited. Frank Lovell, who had accompanied me to Clerkenwell, caught up with me as I clattered down the cloister. “Richard, you should not have had to endure this,” he murmured, touching my arm. “Not at this time.”
I shrugged him off, unable to bear anyone near me, not even one I knew loved me, and who had also been friend to Anne. “Endure it I did, as a King must,” I said between clenched teeth. “Now, I have more joy to come…I must speak with Elizabeth of York and let her know the truth of her position.”
My private closet was dark; I gestured for more sconces to be lit. I leaned over my desk, affecting a calm air, but feeling anything but. I was informal, hatless, no jewels except my rings. A clean linen shirt hung on my spare frame, with a long green robe, open at the front, over all.
“Your Grace,” one of the squires came forward, “the Lady Elizabeth is here as you requested.”
“Thank you, Harold.”
I sat up in my seat as my niece entered the room. She had worn her best gown, glowing like a ruby, hugging her ample form. Her brows were freshly plucked, her forehead whitened until it gleamed like snow. She wore a pendant of soft silver gold and on it hung the emblem of our House—the white Rose.
“Elizabeth…Bessy…” I began.
“Yes?” Beneath the curve of her lashes, her eyes sparkled in the gloom. She smiled; her teeth were pearly and her lips so scarlet…she had reddened them with some women’s potion. For me.
“A grave mistake has been made.”
She frowned; a muscle jumped in her plump cheek. This was evidently not what she had expected to hear. “A mistake? I do not understand! Richard, what do you mean?”
I bit down on my lip. Hard. “When last we met, I spoke to you of a marriage. I asked that you be discreet, lest rumour put paid to my plans.”
She nodded; fear and dismay now clouded her visage.
“And then you were anything but discreet, and wrote to John Howard, asking him to intercede with me on your behalf in the ‘matter of the marriage.’ Worse than that, you then mentioned the Queen in a way you had no right!”
I had not intended to show anger, blaming myself for much of Bessy’s misconception, but the anger came unbidden, mixed with the sting of grief that gnawed my heart relentlessly ever since had Anne died.
She fell to her knees, hand fluttering at her cheek. “The letter! I meant no ill! I could not bear to see the Queen’s suffering. I had hoped…”
“I know exactly what you hoped, now that my eyes have been opened. Ah, Bessy, I was so blind before! The marriage I spoke of….” Helpless, I shook my head, not wanting to meet her tormented gaze. “It was not what you thought. I never had any intentions to marry you. I have sent an ambassador to Portugal, to arrange a marriage for you to Duke Manuel of Beja. And if she will have a wretch such as me, I will marry the Princess Joanna, famed for her piety.”
Bessy looked at me with her mouth open. And then she began to cry.
Like most men I hated women’s tears, and squirmed in discomfort. “Bessy, do not take on so; it will be a good match for you. I have heard he is handsome.”
“Richard, Richard, but I love you!” she cried in a loud voice, and I glanced at her, begging her with my eyes to control herself, lest any were listening outside the room. Thank God, the door was made of stout oak and muffled any sound.
Bessy groped at my arm, at my rich green robe, making dry sobbing noises. I made no move toward her, did not extend a hand to comfort, sat like a frozen statue as she wept.
The sounds of her disappointment soon diminished to a weak snuffling. She glanced up at me, red-eyed, nose running, her beauty erased by her misery. “You will not change your mind? Is there nothing I can do…?”
“No.” My voice was an axe blow.
She cowered.
“Yesterday I went to the Hospital of Saint John’s,” I told her, “and had to tell the great and good of London that I had not and had never had intentions of marrying you. No one must ever doubt the veracity of my words from this day forward—it could endanger my position, and your future. Soon I shall be leaving London anyway; that will help the situation, I pray. As for you, Elizabeth, you may stay here a while longer, but come summer, near the time I expect Henry Tydder to land, I will be sending you to my castle of Sheriff Hutton in the north.”
“Sheriff Hutton!” she cried, as if I were sentencing her to the deepest dungeon under Pontefract.
“Yes, far from London and its rumour mills, far from Tydder…and far from me.”
She looked as if she might cry again.
“You will have everything you need, and you will not be alone. I am sending your sisters too, even Cecily, who will be a fitting companion near your age. Your cousin Edward of Warwick is already there, and John of Lincoln, my heir presumptive, cares for the household.”
“It is like…like being imprisoned,” she said rather boldly. “Like when we were all in sanctuary.”
“You will have restrictions, yes, but I will allow you to go certain distances unaccompanied in the gardens. You do not seem to realise how important you are, Bessy. Many ambitious men would be eager to abduct you, force themselves upon you as a daughter of York. Your bloodline is invaluable.”
She wiped at her wet face; salt tears darkened the rich fabric of her sleeve. “You do not understand, truly you don’t. It is only you I love and ever will…”
“Oh Bessy.” Exasperated, I slapped my hand down on my knee. “You do not. We scarcely know each other. You only came out of sanctuary last year and I was out of London for months dealing with problems in the north. I will say it and not spare your feelings: your passion for me is but a young, bored maiden’s folly, possibly encouraged to some extent by your mother, Dame Grey, who clearly wants to see a crown on your pretty head…” (I nearly said ‘pretty, empty head’, but decided that would be unnecessarily cruel.) “Why would you want to marry me anyway, the rumoured killer of your brothers?”
“We have spoken of Edward and Richard before,” she pouted sullenly. “You have as good as admitted you did not harm them.”
“Did I?” I said. “Or is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Whatever you say, I will never believe it. I know you are no killer…”
“Your half-brother Richard Grey? Have your forgotten him so soon?”
She shivered. “I believe in the law, as you do. I believe he contravened the law, along with my uncle Anthony, and he paid dearly for his folly. But I do not wish to speak of my dead kinsman; indeed, now I do not wish to speak at all.”
She gathered herself, performed a long, deep curtsey before me. Very formally, with her eyes averted, she said, “May I have leave to depart, your Grace? I am feeling suddenly…unwell.”
“Go. You have my leave.”
Bessy fled my closet. I could hear her heels clicking softly on the flagstones. I could hear her crying as she went.
********************************************************
CHAPTER ELEVEN: ROAD TO BATTLE
I was preparing to leave London, having managed to raise a tidy sum toward the defence of England and the battle that would take place in the summer. I
n my parliament of 1484 I had outlawed the hated benevolences my brother had loved so well— ‘gifts’ never to be paid back—but I had come to realise, as the treasury coffers emptied over Christmas, that some way of raising funds for warfare had to be implemented. Refusing to countenance the return of benevolences, I asked for loans instead, swearing oaths to the lenders that I would pay them back in little more than a year. Many men grumbled, seeming not to realise the difference between an enforced gift and a loan, but I got the money nonetheless and kept my honour intact—and there was near enough £20,000 in the royal treasury.
As I continued my preparations, I received interesting news in regards to my old foe, the Marquis of Dorset. Elizabeth Woodville had come before me and asked if I would offer her son clemency if she wrote to him in France and begged him to abandon Tydder. I detested Dorset and would have gladly seen his head adorn London Bridge, but I knew that the Marquis’s return to the Yorkist fold would be a body blow to Henry Tydder. If a man as powerful as Dorset left him and was shown mercy, there was every chance other doubters would follow his example, and all Henry’s plans might become as dust in wind.
So, willingly I gave Dame Grey permission to write to her son with offer of a pardon if he returned home upon the next ship. To everyone’s surprise, Thomas Grey agreed.
However, as usual, where Tydder was concerned, events did not go quite as I would have liked. Dorset was captured in flight from Paris and forcibly hauled back to Henry’s camp. Whet he said to Henry, I know not…but he kept his head. He was little more than a prisoner, but his ultimate fate was none of my concern. It was still pleasing that Henry could not command much loyalty amidst his followers, even in the man who was brother to his intended bride.
When the first buds appeared on the May trees, I rode out of London with my entourage, a great party of knights and lords. With some regret, I called Frank to my side—he would not be faring north with me, for I had another task for him, as much I would have enjoyed his companionship.
“Francis, I trust no man in England more than you,” I told him, leaning over my horse’s neck. Banners snapped above us; the Sunne, the Boar. The wind was in the south, bringing the promises of forthcoming summer and an end to this accursed time of death and despair. “I need someone to guard the coasts against an early incursion by Henry Tydder’s forces. Someone I know could not be bribed or turned. That man is you. I want you to take a force of men and wait at Southampton, since that is where Tydder will most likely arrive. He must not be allowed to gain a foothold in the south or west, where our support is weakest.”
Frank looked vaguely uneasy; the sun picked out gold strands in his hair and traced fine lines around his eyes. We were all getting older, wearied of intrigue and gloom…and it showed in us all. “If that is his Grace’s command, but I would prefer to be with you. I could drive the usurper’s ships away from the shore at Southampton, of that I am certain, but I doubt he would high tail for France. Not this time, unless another storm descends as it did when Buckingham rebelled. He would find another landing spot, and it might not be a place known to us or friendly to our cause. I would also be at your side when battle commences. Away in Southampton, with dangerous leagues lying between us…”
I nodded. “Yes, I see your point, my friend. But that is a risk I must take. I want you at the port.”
“As you wish, your Grace,” he said dubiously.
I turned my horse’s head, while Francis took a step back from my stirrup and the trumpets blew. “I am glad to be away, out of London,” I said, not looking at Frank but to the road ahead. “Farewell, my friend, and do not let me down.”
“I will not. Godspeed, Dickon—my King,” he said, and then I set spurs to my steed’s flanks and my entourage matched away from Westminster, through the heaving streets, the overhanging houses, the teeming markets and the closes where cutthroats lurked. All the bells were ringing.
How glad I was to escape London’s confines; the swollen river, the grimy streets, the mean patches of green; to say nothing of the incessant intrigue and rumour—and the memories of my wife, and all that I had lost, buried near the door of the Confessor’s shrine in Westminster Abbey.
My first stop was at Windsor, but I did not linger long at the great grey castle Edward lay in the chapel, his great heart forever stilled…and where below the pavement, in a hidden crypt, two children’s coffins lay.
Instead, after a single night’s rest, I marched north up the old Roman road to play the part of a dutiful son—I was going to visit my mother Cecily at her castle of Berkhamsted.
The people of that town came out in full force as my company rode in splendour down ancient Akeman Street. My mother was a good mistress to them and they shouted and cheered her son, their King, with unfeigned enthusiasm. The Duchess’s secretary, Robert Incent, emerged from a timbered house on the roadside to give greeting and lead the procession to the nearby castle gates.
Edward had given my mother Berkhamsted in 1469, amidst scandalous whispers that he had forced her into seclusion because she openly despised his wife, Elizabeth Woodville. Up until the time of his unorthodox ‘marriage’, my mother had bragged, rather unwisely, that Edward would do whatever she commanded. She had been sorely mistaken. She was a strong woman, but Ned proved stronger in will than she.
Although one of the first fortresses built by the Conqueror and mighty in its day, Berkhamsted was falling into disrepair when Edward sent our mother there. Never one to be daunted by adversity, Duchess Cecily had set upon rebuilding the walls and turning the partly ruinous halls and apartments into a fitting home for the ‘Queen by Right.’
Inside, as old age crept upon her, she dwelt much as a Benedictine nun, although she was only an oblate of the order, not fully professed, and could and would emerge into the world when needs dictated. My mother was a holy woman but she had lived a life of too much action to retire completely from high affairs, though since my accession she had seldom fared abroad.
Great hinges creaking, the castle gates swung open before me, as I cantered over a causeway that spanned a moat filled with weeds and wild water flowers. Riding under the arch of the gatehouse, the cavalcade entered a bailey bisected by an ivy-wrapped wall and encased by rubble defences upon huge earth embankments.
Dwarfing all other features was the castle motte, a man-made hill of staggering height, with a shell-keep resting proudly on its summit like a crown, the slitted windows overlooking both the bailey and the serene forests of the deer park beyond the walls.
My mother…. How would she look at me after all that had transpired since that turbulent summer of 1483? She had supported me well enough, then, despite the deposition of her grandchildren—well, truth be told, they were likely little enough to her, as she would have seen them as Woodvilles, part of the fold but tainted by common blood—but we had little contact since then; my letter to her of last year, asking her to write me for my comfort, had gone unanswered.
Maybe, seeing how events had turned out, the rebellion, the rumours, she had decided she had made a mistake in giving me her initial support…I flushed as I remembered how Buckingham had repeated the old story of Blaybourne the Archer in one of his orations. I should have stopped him, should have been more aware of what he intended to say. Oh yes, there was so much I should have been aware of when it came to Harry Stafford…
A groom took my steed’s bridle and I dismounted, stiff from the long ride. A needle of pain stabbed my back and I strove to walk without flexing my shoulders. These little pains grew ever more common, though I was not yet thirty-three…
My mother’s ushers appeared from within the castle, knelt to me briefly, and then guided me up the steep hill into the great tower.
Dame Cecily was awaiting me in the solar. As I entered the well-lit chamber, I smiled wryly, for in the presence of this formidable woman, I suddenly felt like a small boy and not the King of England. Dressed in a nun’s garb without ornamentation, her slight frame swamped by yards of black cloth, m
y mother yet had the bearing of a Queen. Taking several slow, deliberate steps, she approached me and stood staring straight into my face, as if getting the measure of me, even challenging me.
Then she went down on her knees and laid her dry lips against my hand. “My Lord King, I give you greeting in my humble home.”
“You are not to kneel to me, Lady,” I said softly. “Rise and let us speak. It has been too long.”
I gave her my hand and helped her to rise; her movements were slightly stiff, and I saw her grimace with pain—the maladies of age, which even I, many years her junior, now suffered. She gestured to her servants and they melted away, save for a youthful cupbearer and a taster.
“You, Stephen, bring a goblet of wine for His Grace the King,” she ordered, rounding on the cupbearer, a freckled lad with bright red hair.
Immediately the draught was poured, tasted by the dour man employed to risk his life for Duchess Cecily and her guests, then presented ceremoniously to me with much bowing and reverence. Another cup was handed to my mother, with equal ceremony and decorum, then she shooed both boy and taster away, and they went to linger in the hallway, holding the silver wine decanter between them, waiting for another call from their mistress.
Dame Cecily sipped her own cup. “It is good wine, is it not?” she said, almost absently. “I like a bit of wine in the evenings, Richard. I always have some in the hour before I go to sleep. It takes the pain from my bones; my knees and fingers hurt these days, when it grows cold outside…and it lifts any melancholy that might assail me. It makes me seek good honest mirth with my gentlewomen.”
“Mirth is always a welcome thing, and good for the spirit,” I smiled. “This seems a happy household.”
“It is. My little sanctuary away from the world.” She plucked at her black robes. “The world outside is sinful and I am an oblate, by my own choice. From seven in the morning, I attend matins and low mass and divine service and then more masses. At dinner, I hear a lecture on the holy matter. Then it is on to the Evensongs.”
I, Richard Plantagenet: Book Two: Loyaulte Me Lie Page 36
