When he was given entrance, he announced that he was in the service of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York and Elizabeth’s grandmother. Excitement rose from deep within her. She was aware that her grandmother would only send a message to her mother if she absolutely had to. Even at only five years old, the snippets of speech and condescending looks her grandmother aimed at her mother had not gone unnoticed.
The queen hastily passed baby Edward to Matilda and grasped the note from the dripping messenger. She tore it open as though it contained the Holy Grail, and rightly so for it contained the message that Edward, with his brother Richard, had landed at Ravenspur two weeks earlier.
Hurriedly replacing her almost maniacal look with one more suited to a queen, Elizabeth’s mother formally thanked the young man and invited him to dry himself by the fire. Immediately forgetting him, she turned to her daughters and announced, “Your father will be here soon!” More quietly she added, “To reclaim his family and his kingdom.”
In the days following this momentous visit, the queen regained her zeal for life and applied that passion to ordering her children and servants to complete an endless list of tasks in preparation for Edward’s arrival. Rooms must be cleaned, trunks must be packed – for certainly they would not be remaining here for long, and the girls must be made presentable to stand before the king. Elizabeth did not even mind her mother’s short temper, for her father would arrive any day now!
Rumors came to them in the coming days, and it was more frustrating than ever before to be trapped in sanctuary. This place they had fled to for their safety felt like a prison, and they were never more anxious to leave it than when their rescue was close at hand. One day the boy who brought their bread from a faithful Yorkist baker whispered that Edward was headed for London with his army. George of Clarence, Edward’s brother who had helped send him into exile when he joined Warwick, had defected back to Elizabeth’s father, putting the Lancastrians into a more difficult position. Would London welcome her father or close its gates to him as ordered by Warwick? The queen still seemed outwardly confident, but Elizabeth saw the fine lines racing away from her eyes and caught the slouch of her shoulders when she thought nobody was looking.
Would London hold for Henry VI or shove him aside for Edward IV?
It was Holy Week and Elizabeth spent much time on her knees, beseeching the Lord to be with her father and uncles. Her mother often found her in prayer and would join her briefly before returning to tasks that she found more practical in the preparation for the return of her king. On Maundy Thursday, Elizabeth heard cheering erupt out on the street. She ran to her window seat but could not ascertain if the praise was for her father.
“My sweet Elizabeth,” she heard a deep, masculine voice behind her say.
Fountains of joy burst within her, and she turned and jumped down from her ledge only to stop short. Her father was embracing her mother, and it was to her those precious words were directed. Struggling to control the blush she felt racing across her cheeks, she fell into a curtsey as she had been practicing since hearing of her father’s return to the country.
Soon, she felt his large, calloused hand on her chin. “Is this beautiful young lady truly my little princess?” her father asked.
She rose with the pressure of his hand and solemnly responded, “Yes, father.”
“Then come here and kiss your father,” he exclaimed, grabbing her around the waist and swinging her up into the air.
Elizabeth squealed happily and felt relief flood through her. Her father had returned and did indeed still love her. Her slender arms circled his neck and she held on as though she were afraid he may change his mind. “I missed you so,” she whispered in his ear.
“And I missed you, my darling Bess.”
She closed her eyes and drank deeply of the scent and feel of being in her father’s arms. Her mother would insist that he take a bath, but Elizabeth didn’t mind that he smelled like horses and sweat. He felt strong and solid as the Tower of London.
“And who are these lovely ladies?” he asked, and Elizabeth was dismayed that she was going to have to share him with her sisters.
“Oh, father, you know it is Mary and Cecily,” she said without releasing her grip upon him. When she peeked at her sisters, she saw that Mary looked in awe and uncertain while Cecily looked purely terrified.
“Surely, you remember our father,” she admonished her sisters.
Edward shifted her to one arm while reaching out with the other as he stooped down to the little girls’ level. “Their father has been gone a long time for ones so young,” he whispered to Elizabeth. “They are not yet as quick and mature as you.”
She grinned and was willing to allow her sisters to share in their father’s affection after hearing this.
“Good day, father,” little Mary said with a clumsy curtsy.
“Ah, that’s enough formality, isn’t it?” said Edward. “Come here, my Mary.”
Mary overcame her uncertainties and threw herself into Edward’s waiting arm. Cecily looked like she was struggling to decide whether or not to join her sisters with this man she did not remember.
“Father, you stink!” said Mary as she pulled back and wrinkled her freckled nose at him.
He laughed deeply and loudly. “I’m sure that I do,” Edward admitted unashamedly. “I’d be willing to wager that your mother has disappeared to order me a bath, and a well deserved one it is, too.” He kissed Mary on the forehead and released her. Elizabeth still clung to his other side with no plans of releasing him until she had to.
“Cecily….” He reached out to her as he said her name, but Cecily dissolved into tears.
“Cecily!” Elizabeth shouted. “How could you treat our darling father so?” She looked to him in apology for her small sister’s offense.
“There now, it’s quite alright,” he said as he detangled himself from her grasp. “She will be happy to be with her father in no time.” He looked to his wife standing in the doorway to the next room. “It appears that now I am to be bathed.” The queen smiled in a way that Elizabeth had not seen since they had taken up residence in the abbey.
“Mother, you must speak to Cecily,” Elizabeth commanded, but her mother motioned to Matilda to comfort Cecily before closing the door behind her and her husband.
Elizabeth approached Cecily and Matilda, who was attempting to wipe away her tears. “Now why would she let Cecily misbehave that way? Certainly father has servants to help him bathe.”
“Certainly, he does,” Matilda admitted with a smile, but she did not seem surprised that Cecily had not been reprimanded.
Later, an uncommon amount of time later for something as simple as a bath Elizabeth thought, Edward and his wife rejoined their cluster of girls. Elizabeth and Mary settled on his lap, while Cecily sat nearby. She had dried her tears but continued to look uncertain of this giant of a man, who everyone claimed was her father. The queen smiled at her husband as if they shared a secret as she slipped from the room. That is when it hit Elizabeth. The Prince! Her father had his little Edward and would no longer care that Elizabeth was his oldest child because she was a girl. Sure enough, her mother reentered the room with a small bundle and a satisfied smile.
“Here is your son,” she said.
Edward deposited the girls on the floor as he rose from his seat. Slowly, as if he was a little afraid – but that was silly, this man who had taken on armies from the age of sixteen could not be afraid of a newborn – he approached his son.
“My love, you have given me everything a man could desire,” he said as he gazed at the baby boy.
He wasn’t that remarkable, thought Elizabeth. Though she had to admit her baby brother was much more attractive now than he had been that first day. Her father would not be as impressed if he’d seen him then.
Edward kissed his son and his wife in turn before moving his eyes back to his daughters who seemed to be eagerly awaiting his judgment of their brother.
“What a b
lessed prince he is, too, with three lovely sisters,” he said happily as he put his hands out to them.
Elizabeth was the first to fling herself into his arms.
“You will be a wonderful help teaching our little prince how to behave, will you not, Elizabeth?” her father asked.
“Of course, father,” she responded, seriously adding, “But he does not do much besides cry and eat.”
Edward grinned. “I’m sure you are right. Please let me know when he acquires more notable skills.”
Elizabeth nodded and smiled as she laid her head on his shoulder. He understood, and he loved her.
As they all sat together as a family for the first time in six months, Elizabeth focused on the feel of her father’s strong, warm arms holding her while conversation swirled around the room.
Her brother, Thomas, had many questions about where Edward had been and what he was going to do next. Young Richard seemed in awe, not only of his step-father, but his older brother as well. It was overwhelming to Elizabeth, this talk of who would side with who and how they were all related. Reveling in the warm fire and feeling of security, her eyelids drooped and her chin slowly drifted down to her chest. She just hoped that her father would stay right where he was.
It was not to be as Elizabeth wished. The next day, servants hustled about moving the last of the queen’s and princesses’ things from the abbey to Grandmother Cecily’s London residence, Baynard’s Castle. Even more were scurrying in preparation for Edward’s army to move out to meet that of Margaret of Anjou, known to the Lancastrians as Queen of England.
~~~~
How Elizabeth longed for peace, not because she was aware enough to be concerned about the thousands of soldiers who would be barbarically throwing themselves at one another, but because it would mean more visitors and freedom. The idea that men were out there preparing to die either for her father or in an attempt to steal his throne was still too far beyond her comprehension.
A line of wagons piled high with the queen’s and her children’s things made their way to the duchess of York’s castle nestled into place on the bank of the Thames. Elizabeth tilted her head back to see the top of the hexagonal towers and high turrets. The huge stone complex looked like it would stand forever and gave her a feeling of security that she had not felt in the months spent at the abbey. She closed her eyes as the sun warmed her face and wished that she could lie in the grass enjoying the contrast between the cool ground and the heat of the sun. The jolting of the carriage brought her from her reverie and she saw her grandmother’s servants lined up to assist with the family’s things.
Soon she was settled into a lovely set of rooms with her sisters. Baby Edward, of course, had his own private suite with a fleet of caregivers from wet-nurses to rockers to laundresses. Duchess Cecily had welcomed them kindly but formally. Elizabeth didn’t think her grandmother knew how to be informal and affectionate. She wondered how her father had learned to be warm and jovial. For the first time, she wondered what had happened to her father’s father whom she had never met.
Matilda came in with Mary and Cecily in tow. With their father back in London, they saw less of their mother. The joyous family reunion they had enjoyed when he first returned was a flash of familial harmony and togetherness that was quickly extinguished.
“Lady Elizabeth, are you practicing your lute?” Matilda asked.
Elizabeth slid the instrument off her lap and pushed it aside with disdain. “Not really,” she replied.
Mary came stomping in and demanded, “Why is our father leaving again?”
Three sets of curious eyes locked onto Matilda as they were each very interested in the answer to this question that only Mary dared to ask.
The nurse crouched down and the girls huddled around her as though they were a part of a conspiracy.
“Your father goes to defend his right to be King.”
“That’s nonsense! Of course he’s the King!” Mary exclaimed.
“Yes, love. I know he is,” Matilda assured her. “But Margaret of Anjou fights for her son’s right to inherit more than her husband’s right to hold the throne. She must fight for her husband to benefit her son.”
“But our brother, Edward, will be King,” Elizabeth said in a slightly questioning tone.
“He will,” Matilda said with certainty. “Because your father will defeat these murderous Lancastrians once and for all!” The girls were used to outbursts such as this and none of them thought to wonder what had turned their soft-spoken Matilda so vehemently against King Henry.
“Why do they fight father?” Mary asked. Elizabeth was quite glad that she had.
Matilda sighed. “Well, that is a very long story, isn’t it? And too confusing for little girls.” She looked at each of their expectant faces and decided to try. “When your father became king, some people believed that it should still be King Henry VI no matter how unfit he was to rule. Your father’s father, the mighty duke of York, had put forward his own claim to the throne before he died, showing that he was rightful heir going all the way back to Edward III.”
“But why does our uncle Warwick fight with them?” Elizabeth asked.
“The earl of Warwick is anxious to have as much power as he can possibly possess, and has decided that any king will do if he is holding their reins,” she said slowly as if trying to be sure that she answered correctly, if not completely.
“How could the wrong person be king?” Mary pressed on.
“Yes, how?” Elizabeth added, ignoring Matilda’s raised eyebrows.
“Well, this is a better question for one of your tutors than for me,” she huffed. “But it started with Henry IV taking the throne from his cousin, Richard II. That got the crown going along the line of the wrong son. Nobody worried too much about it until our King Henry started acting addled. Then your grandfather, Richard Plantagenet, decided it was time to advance the lines of the older sons of Edward III.”
She examined the little faces gazing at her own. Could they really understand? She wasn’t sure that she did.
“So, our family should have been kings all along.” Elizabeth stated.
“I suppose that’s true,” Matilda agreed, though she was not sure it was. She dared not point out that if their grandfather had been king, Elizabeth Woodville would probably have never managed to marry their father.
“And our father will prove again that he is the rightful king!” Mary cried out in obvious repetition of exclamations made throughout the castle.
Smiling as she groaned to straighten up, Matilda agreed, “That he will, my little ladies. That he will.”
For days after this conversation, Elizabeth had pondered what it all meant. Why had people not wanted her father to be king? She had seen the dreary, fragile Henry and couldn’t imagine him making a better king than her powerful, handsome father. As for Queen Margaret, she was not nearly as beautiful as Elizabeth’s own mother, and she had borne only one child compared to her mother’s six (if you counted Thomas and Richard, and she supposed she must). If her family also had the clear lineage required, why did the people fight?
She wondered if sometimes men actually enjoyed having something to fight about.
~~~~
As they waited for news of her father, Elizabeth’s mother appeared more in the nursery. The pinched look that had been etched into her face during their time in sanctuary was replaced by a more confident, peaceful one, but Elizabeth was certain that fear still loomed behind her eyes.
“Father is the greatest soldier in all of England, is he not?” she asked her mother.
The queen blinked as though she were being shaken from a dream. “Certainly he is. None can begin to compare to your father on the field.” She stated it as she said everything, as though there was no room for debate.
“Then why do they fight him?” asked Mary.
“Because they are sentimental idiots,” blurted the queen.
“Will father win?” Elizabeth asked in a voice barely above a w
hisper.
“Yes.” The queen straightened her back and tilted her head back ever so slightly, giving power to her husband’s troops through her own regality.
At that moment, a page rushed in and bowed low before the girls’ mother.
“Yes, what is it?” she demanded.
“Pardon me, your grace,” he said without completely straightening. “A messenger from the king has arrived.”
“Have him brought to my chamber immediately,” she ordered as she swept past the boy without waiting for a response.
When the girls heard cheering in the courtyard, they kneeled in prayer to thank God for the news that nobody had bothered to give them yet.
Tidbits of news were gathered by Elizabeth as she eavesdropped on conversations people assumed that she was too young to be interested in. Her father had defeated the traitorous Warwick at Barnet. She knew that she should be happy. Richard Neville of Warwick had executed her grandfather, Richard Woodville, and uncle, John Woodville. He had hoped to kill her father, but part of her was still sad that cousin fought cousin in these battles.
With the disadvantages her father had faced at Barnet, everyone at court said that it was God who had given him victory as the rightful king. Elizabeth thought that it all must be over. Then she heard that Margaret of Anjou and her son, whom some people called Prince Edouard and others called Edouard of Lancaster, had landed on England’s shores to attempt once more to restore Henry’s throne.
It was difficult to embroider, practice her lessons, or even to eat, knowing that her father was out there, fighting for his kingdom and his life. Her life seemed too ordinary for something so important to be going on. She tried to keep herself occupied with Cecily and Mary as they awaited messengers from the battlefield.
On May 6, the news came. Edward and his army had crushed this final Lancastrian challenge at Tewkesbury two days earlier. Margaret’s son, Edouard, had been killed in battle, and Margaret taken prisoner. Elizabeth wondered if the sometime queen would be allowed to join her husband in the Tower.
Plantagenet Princess, Tudor Queen: The Story of Elizabeth of York Page 2
