Rebellion

by Livi Michael

  Lack of food made her sway slightly.

  ‘Madame,’ her cousin said, ‘please be seated.’ And miraculously it seemed, because she had thought there was no other chair in the room, one appeared. Smaller than her cousin’s seat, of course, but placed next to his so that they could speak. And she was offered a goblet of wine and some bread and oil.

  She looked towards her son, who was still standing where she had left him, directing the full force of his stare at the king.

  ‘Your majesty, may I present my son the prince,’ she said.

  The king leaned forward in his seat and beckoned the little boy, who glanced at her before approaching, then dropped elegantly to one knee. She watched eagerly as the king assessed him; the straightness of his back, his silky hair. The king’s own sons had died in infancy; he had only one daughter, the princess Anne, who was just one year old.

  ‘You have travelled a long way,’ he said to her son. ‘I think you must be hungry. And thirsty.’

  Without looking at her the little prince replied, ‘It is nothing now that I have seen your majesty.’

  She was so proud of him. Even in her distress she smiled.

  But the king did not look at her.

  ‘I think you would like some refreshment,’ he said. He motioned to a servant, and the prince and her attendants were ushered away before she could protest. She had been going to make her appeal with her son at her side. But now she was alone, with the king and his attendants.

  King Louis leaned towards her. ‘Tell me what brings you so far into our country,’ he said.

  As if he didn’t know.

  However, the queen recounted her tale. The sorry tale of King Henry, a good and pious man, whose cousins had risen against him and torn the nation apart in one battle after another until all the land was bathed in blood. Nothing could equal their treachery, their iniquity. And now the son of one of these cousins, Edward of York, had set himself up as king.

  ‘He is not king!’ she burst out. ‘He will never be anything other than a usurper. He will die the death that all such traitors die!’

  King Louis commented only that he must have had considerable support.

  ‘They have turned the hearts of the people with their lies and malice!’ said the queen.

  The bulbous end of King Louis’ nose twitched once. ‘And where is the king, your husband?’ he said.

  King Henry was in Scotland. But the Scottish queen had made it clear that she could not support him indefinitely. Scotland had been subjected to threats and harassment from the House of York, and especially from the Earl of Warwick, who had led his troops across the border to attack Scottish castles after taking several castles in the north of England, so that there was nowhere for the Lancastrian court to go.

  ‘The position would seem to be hopeless,’ the French king murmured. But Margaret of Anjou protested that it was not hopeless: she had many supporters – there were many loyal subjects of the true king. In fact, as his majesty knew, the Earl of Oxford had recently led a conspiracy to overthrow the so-called ‘new king’ and organize an invasion from Scotland.

  ‘But that did not end well, I think,’ said King Louis, and the queen was forced to admit that, in fact, due to the efforts of a Yorkist spy who had intercepted one of the messages from the earl, the uprising had been brutally suppressed.

  The Earl of Oxford fastened to a stretcher, disembowelled, castrated, then burned alive, and his oldest son executed with him.

  The French king dipped his fingers into a bowl. ‘So how would you describe your position?’ he said. An expression of distress flitted across the queen’s face.

  ‘We still have our supporters,’ she said. The Scottish queen would give them money to leave Scotland, she believed. And Queen Mary had agreed to a marriage between her daughter and Prince Edward, who was the rightful prince and heir.

  The French king sat back. She could see him thinking that it might suit him to have a member of his own family, half French, on the English throne as his vassal. But all he said was, ‘Certainly we could not have two King Edwards in England at the same time – that would confuse the people, eh?’

  ‘Edward of York is not king,’ she said clearly. ‘And when I have finished with him he will not be earl either. He will be nothing – less than nothing!’

  The French king’s nose twitched again. He indicated to a servant to fill her goblet. ‘What other support do you have?’ he said.

  So she told him, hesitating only a little, that she could count on the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Devon, whose supporters were in the south. That was where she thought an invasion might be made – through the Channel Islands. Or alternatively to the north – through the lands of the Earl of Northumberland, who had died for King Henry’s cause at Towton. The lands no longer belonged to him, of course – they had been granted to the Earl of Warwick’s brother – but still the family and tenants remained loyal.

  ‘If we can retake the castles,’ she said, warming to her theme, ‘the Scots will support us – I am sure of it.’

  As she spoke, all her energies, all the old fire, revived in her. But the French king gave no indication at all of his response. He listened impassively, only occasional expressions of doubt or discouragement flitting across his face like shadows across a deep pool.

  2

  Margaret of Anjou Receives a Visitor

  Seen from the palace windows, the meadows were a soft gold. Occasionally a bird flitted across the hillside, but other than that nothing moved. Sheep stood or sat in absolute stillness, each one depositing an imprint of shadow to the right.

  As the day passed the heat would become unendurable; the grass parched, sheep and horses seeking the shade afforded by a rare tree or shrub. But in the early morning the world seemed saturated in stillness, as if holding its breath, but content to wait.

  Only the English queen was not content. Waiting was not something she did well.

  King Louis had promised her nothing, she said. He had ushered her from his presence with only the pledge that he would give her situation some thought.

  ‘As if I am not thinking enough for both of us,’ she said, gazing out of the window to where the sheep stippled the hillside, motionless, without urgency.

  The archdeacon, Dr Morton, with whom she said Mass every morning, observed that thinking was indeed man’s curse. ‘That is why God has given us prayer,’ he said, ‘to channel thought.’

  ‘I do pray,’ said the queen. She had prayed every day that Edward of York would fall on his sword, or Warwick from his horse and break his neck.

  The archdeacon refrained from saying that perhaps this was not what was meant. The queen was in no mood to be instructed about prayer. Ever since she’d heard that Warwick had made a truce with the Scots she had been beside herself. God, she said, no longer listened to her prayers.

  He said instead that at least Louis had given them lodging in the palace.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And I am kept here, waiting, without purpose. Every day the usurper secures his grip on my throne and all I can do is wait to be summoned, for Louis to tell me what he will or will not do. He has already decided – that much I know – but it pleases him to make me wait. And wonder. And wait again. When will it come?’ she said, turning round to him. ‘When will I hear the knock at the door?’

  Dr Morton was about to say something when there was, in fact, a knock at the door, and they both froze, comically startled. The queen drew herself up, very pale. ‘Enter,’ she said.

  She did not at first recognize the man who stood in the doorway. He was somewhat shabby, unshaven, grey stubble covering his face and head in roughly equal amounts. There was a scar beneath his eye and it was this she recognized first.

  ‘Chevalier?’ she said wonderingly, and in two strides he crossed the room, sank to his knees and kissed her hand.

  ‘My lady,’ he said.

  Margaret of Anjou looked at the archdeacon, who seemed as astonished as she but more wary.r />
  ‘It is the Seneschal,’ she said, her face breaking into a smile.

  ‘Pierre de Brézé, at your service,’ the kneeling man said.

  ‘I thought you were in custody,’ she said, and the man made a dismissive noise.

  ‘His majesty has released me,’ he said. ‘I was told I could come to you and I came, at once. I have had no time to change.’ He indicated his clothing.

  The queen’s heart quickened. This was surely a good sign – the best indication that Louis intended to help her. She looked at the archdeacon. ‘The Seneschal and I have many things to discuss,’ she said. The look of wariness on Dr Morton’s face intensified. ‘Perhaps you will wait in the outer chamber,’ she said, and after a moment in which it seemed as if he might argue or offer a cautionary sermon, he bowed and left.

  The queen helped de Brézé to rise. He moved more stiffly than she remembered, but his lopsided face creased into a smile. He had a new scar, running from his chin to his mouth.

  ‘You’ve been fighting,’ she said.

  ‘It was nothing, my lady – a duel only. A man unfit to be named accused me of cheating at cards.’

  ‘Of course you would never do such a thing.’

  ‘I would never allow it to be said that I would do such a thing.’

  ‘And you were in prison.’

  ‘No, no, my lady – I was confined to a chateau. It is not the same thing at all.’

  ‘You look as though you have been in prison,’ she said. ‘You look like a pirate.’

  He knew she was referring to the acts of piracy he had undertaken without any authority, plundering the south coast of England. On one occasion he had burned the town of Sandwich, his men playing tennis afterwards in the smoking ruins. Of course, the English had blamed her for this as well. And Louis had imprisoned him, in an unaccountable show of solidarity with the new Yorkist regime. But de Brézé failed to look penitent. He passed a hand across the stubble on his chin. ‘I look like a man who would do many things for his queen,’ he said.

  ‘Louis should not have imprisoned you,’ said the queen. Then she sat down at a little table and indicated that he too should sit. ‘Tell me,’ she said in a low voice, ‘what else did he say?’

  ‘My lady, I have not seen the king. I was told only that I was being released, and that I could come to you. And so I came.’

  The queen did not know what to make of this. What game was Louis playing? But before she could speak, de Brézé continued, ‘Enough of me. Tell me about your situation.’ And there was an expression of such tender concern on his face that the queen felt an impulse to weep.

  She controlled it, however, and spoke quite calmly as she told him about everything that had happened in the past year – the battles she’d fought, the immense march south from Scotland to St Albans. Half the country had flocked to her cause, and she’d won a great victory. But then London had closed its gates against her and she’d been forced to retreat. And as she’d retreated, the Earl of March, son of the great traitor Richard of York, had entered London and declared himself king by consent of the citizens who had believed his lies, and the lies of Warwick. And then they’d fought the greatest battle of all, Towton, on Palm Sunday in the whirling snow, and so many had been slaughtered that the corpses were strewn all the way to York on a road some nine miles long and three wide.

  ‘Many of our supporters are gone,’ she said, emotional now.

  De Brézé leaned forward and took her hand. ‘And you?’ he said. ‘How did you escape?’

  They had escaped by torchlight, riding north into Scotland through dense forest, as though all the hosts of hell were behind them. They’d been besieged at Wark Castle, relieved only by retainers of the Earl of Northumberland, and had escaped through a small gate at the back of the castle. From there they’d ridden to Berwick and Galloway. And then her husband the king had been too ill and devastated to proceed further. He had taken refuge in the convent at Kirkcudbright, while the queen and her son had gone to the Scottish court, where Mary of Guelders had given them a somewhat distant welcome. Then they had stayed wherever room could be found for them.

  The Yorkists had not been idle, of course. Warwick had been sent north to retake the castles of Bamburgh, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh. He had made the Scots promise they would give no military aid to the Lancastrians. And now he had managed to secure a truce between the House of York and the young Scottish king, James III.

  ‘But they cannot ignore the betrothal,’ she said. Her son, the rightful prince, was betrothed to Margaret Stewart, sister of James III.

  While all this was happening, she, Margaret of Anjou, had sent emissaries to France to ask for aid from her uncle Charles VII. But then, of course, came the greatest blow. Her beloved uncle had died and was replaced by her less-beloved cousin Louis. The news had taken a long time to reach her because Louis had imprisoned her emissaries, including the Duke of Somerset, and their letters to her had been intercepted. And then, equally mysteriously, Louis had released the prisoners, welcomed them to his court and offered help to the Earl of Oxford, whose uprising had failed.

  Her uncle had offered de Brézé money and ships before he died, but now his son Louis was prevaricating. ‘He keeps me waiting like a prisoner myself,’ the queen said.

  ‘He is not like his father,’ de Brézé said, and for a moment they both contemplated the difference between father and son. Then de Brézé said, ‘The Duke of Somerset –’

  ‘The House of Somerset has always been loyal to me,’ the queen said warmly. ‘I know that I can trust them completely.’

  De Brézé pulled the corners of his mouth down.

  ‘What?’ said the queen. ‘They have fought one battle after another for me.’

  ‘“Completely” is an extravagant word,’ de Brézé said, and the queen stared at him until he went on. ‘The young duke is … somewhat free with his speech.’

  ‘You mean – he has betrayed us?’

  ‘No, no,’ de Brézé said. ‘But he may have given the impression that he is somewhat more than your knight.’

  Colour stung the queen’s cheeks. ‘He would not do such a thing!’ she said. ‘Where did you hear this?’

  ‘It has been said.’

  ‘Rumours! You are listening to gutter news.’

  ‘If I am listening, other people will.’

  ‘But it is not true! And he would not say such a thing – what is he supposed to have said?’

  De Brézé lifted his hands as though to ward off blows. ‘I do not know that he has said anything, my lady. Except to boast of your particular favour. And people will make of that what they will.’

  ‘People!’ she said. ‘I do not believe it – that is what matters.’

  At the same time she knew it could be true. The young Duke of Somerset had already boasted of bedding the Scottish queen.

  De Brézé suggested it was what King Louis believed in this particular situation that actually mattered. ‘That’s why I told you, my lady – not to distress you, but to make you wary of any traps he might spring.’

  ‘You think he is trying to trap me?’

  ‘It would not be out of character – if he is looking for a reason not to supply you with money and ships.’

  The queen rose and began to pace around the room.

  ‘But this is monstrous,’ she said.

  ‘All I am saying,’ said de Brézé, ‘is that when he finally grants you an audience you must be clear that any help he may give is for your husband and your son. I know,’ he said, lifting his hands again, ‘your loyalty is not in question. But Louis would rather help a king than a queen – despite any ties of blood.’

  The queen turned away. ‘If he sees me,’ she said. ‘How long is he going to keep me here? Weeks pass and our enemies sit on the throne unchallenged. I should be raising an army – preparing to invade – this summer while the weather holds. Will he make me wait until the middle of winter? Or until the English people have forgotten my name? They will be
eager to forget,’ she added bitterly. ‘They never wanted me there in the first place.’

  De Brézé rose and stood behind her. ‘I have two thousand men at my command,’ he said quietly. ‘They will sail whenever you give the word. Their lives are yours.’

  She inclined her head. ‘Are they all brigands like you?’ she said.

  ‘They are men like me,’ de Brézé said, ‘who would do anything for you.’

  The queen nodded. ‘If they are all like you, we are lost,’ she said. ‘You act without orders, and your actions rebound on me – they cause my people to hate me. And they do hate me,’ she said. ‘That is the simple truth.’

  ‘Your majesty,’ de Brézé said into her ear, ‘do you remember when you first left this country to sail to England?’

  Of course she remembered it. The feasting had lasted more than a week, there had been eight days of tournaments. All the streets were hung with garlands of marguerites, her symbol, and banners with silver and gold daisies on them. And her weeping father had begged her to forgive him for having no dowry to send with her.

  ‘You were La Petite Marguerite,’ de Brézé said. ‘The Flower of France. You held your head so high – you would not cry, not you – and you stepped like a dancer.’

  The queen did not answer but she was listening. She could see herself as she was then, so many years ago, setting off with such high hopes, such expectations, to be queen of a land she did not know. She had been fourteen then and now she was thirty-two – sometimes she felt that she was already old.

  ‘We sent them the best France had to offer,’ de Brézé said, ‘and how did they treat this gift?’

  He had pledged himself to her then, he had promised that he would always be her chevalier. She turned part way towards him. ‘Two thousand only?’ she said.

  ‘You have your own men, do you not?’ he said. ‘Here, and in England. And King Louis will support you – what else can he do? He cannot keep you here indefinitely. And then,’ he said, picking up a stray lock of her hair and kissing it, ‘then we will remind an ungrateful nation of your name.’