by Livi Michael
So many men had fallen in the river that others were trampling across them dry-shod. And they were all covered in mud so that it seemed as though the earth itself had risen up and was moving. A landslide of men.
As he stood, shaken and appalled, he was surrounded suddenly, and as suddenly disarmed.
And still he stood there, amazed.
Alone now in his guarded room, William Herbert shook the head he was shortly to lose. The bards would sing about the battle, of course; doubtless they had already started. But he had not wanted to be the subject of those pain-filled elegies. He did not want to be remembered for the slaughter of so many Welsh.
It was a disaster, the greatest disaster that the Welsh nation had seen since the loss of Owain Glyndwr. But could it have been avoided? He could not have anticipated betrayal, not just by the Earl of Devon, but by what he had come to consider his fortune. The expectation that he would succeed, and rise.
He had risen, of course, in the service of a king who placed more faith in men of ability than in the blood royal or in nationality. He was the first Welshman to be made a peer of England. In his own country he was as good as king.
Now he would suffer the fate of those who rise.
Hubris, then; that other variety of madness. He had been mad enough to believe that his fortune was the will of God, that it would protect him while he had faith.
There, on the battlefield, he had witnessed the collapse of his faith. And he had been disarmed and captured.
But in all fairness he could not say that his faith was the same thing as overweening pride. It would be equally true to say that he had done what he had to do because he could not do anything else. Given all the considerations of time, place and circumstances.
These were questions that even now, at the end of his life, he could not answer.
He had not slept since being taken into captivity, nor had he been allowed to wash or change his clothes. He could feel the sensation of grit behind his eyelids and an odd effect as though his mind had somehow broken free of the confines of his skull and was reaching towards some final wisdom. But until the axe fell it was still tethered by the shackles of his thoughts.
He had sent three messages to the Earl of Warwick, requesting mercy, not for himself, but for his son and his brother, who were so much younger and who had fought with great courage for their king. He knew better than to ask for himself. And when no message was returned he knew it was pointless to ask for any mercy from the earl, who was by nature a predator.
So now there was just one more letter to write, to his wife. He thought of her with a bitter tenderness that was almost beyond endurance; her wide smile, that blue gaze that suggested to him always something just beyond his reach.
Even when he moved inside her he knew he could not possess her; she was her own country, at once familiar and unknown.
Before he left they had fallen out quite bitterly, over some woman who had borne his child. And afterwards he had pressed her to say that, if he died and did not come back to her, she would not marry again, she would take a vow of perpetual chastity. He had persisted, making her weep, which was not a common occurrence. She hadn’t wanted to say those words, but for some reason he’d been unable to let it go.
In the end she had made the promise, and he would remind her of that now.
He sat at the table and picked up the quill.
He apologized for leaving her and said that above all he regretted they would not live out their lives among the mountains. He hoped she would forgive him for that, and that she would live out the rest of her life in peace and joy. Then he stopped momentarily; he could feel his breath rasping in his throat. And his eyes were watering although he did not feel as if he was weeping. It was as though they were weeping on their own.
After a moment he pressed his quill down again.
Pray for me and take the said order that ye promised me, as ye had in life my heart and love.
Letter from William Lord Herbert to Anne Devereux, Lady Herbert, 27 July 1469
Then he put down his quill and stared out of the window at the sky.
30
Edward IV Hears the News
He had been on pilgrimage, in fact, when all the trouble started, an irony which was not lost on him. He had visited the shrine of Edmund the martyr, whom he honoured in memory of his own brother Edmund, and then to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. Ostensibly this was to give thanks for the birth of his third daughter, Cecily, who had been born in March; actually it was to pray for a son. His wife had come to him with two fine sons, well grown, but since then she’d had only daughters. The proclamation of the new baby’s arrival said that the king and all his nobles rejoiced exceedingly at her birth. But how much more rejoicing would there have been at a son?
Surely it was not too much to expect a son?
The people expected it.
A son would do so much to assuage the unrest among his people, the uprisings and protests, the rumours that his entire reign was unjustified and unjustifiable; the slanders against his queen.
So he’d gone on pilgrimage, travelling on many of the roads that the people said could not be travelled because of violence and lawlessness. They were compelled to stay in, they said, especially at night. But he, their king, had travelled them, taking his time. And at each place he came to he lit candles and made offerings and prayed, for the good of his kingdom and for himself as king.
Send me an heir to rule this country after me.
He did not consider himself to be especially good at prayer. Nothing happened when he closed his eyes; he felt no sensation of either censure or benediction. But he made his requests dutifully before passing to the next shrine.
A king did not need to be good at prayer. There were other men for that. The previous king had been good at prayer and where had that got him? He, Edward, was good at other things. More earthly things perhaps, but God had made him as he was. There must be some room in God’s vision for the carnal man.
In the chapel at Walsingham he had lit candles for his wife and children, the son he wished to have, and for the souls of his father and brother. And a small wind had blown them all out.
He shrugged this off. He was not given to looking for signs or portents. The holy man, he was fond of saying, would see God’s face in a tankard of ale, while another man would have drunk it first.
Even so he felt somewhat oppressed as he left the chapel. He went from Walsingham to Crowland Abbey in Lincolnshire, where the monks, who were better informed than any man in the kingdom, told him of the uprising in the north. The people were complaining of the tax, the abbot said, and his pale eyes in their bony sockets looked straight at the king.
Edward was inclined to play this down. There had been so many uprisings and he was certain that his men could suppress this one. Still, he stayed only one night at the abbey before travelling to his queen at Fotheringhay and sending out his agents. They returned to tell him that this particular uprising might be more serious than he had thought. So from Stamford he wrote to the mayors of various towns commanding them to supply him with armed men. And at Newark on 10 July he sent to them again, more urgently.
Then he wrote in a friendly way to the Earl of Warwick. He would not credit what he’d heard, he said. He did not believe that the earl was of any such disposition toward us as the rumour here runneth. But instead of a reply there was a proclamation from the earl, his brother and the Duke of Clarence. The king’s true subjects, it said, had called upon them with piteous tormentation to remedy the evils that had fallen upon this land. The king was deceived by deceitful and covetous persons, and it mentioned by name most of his wife’s family, William Herbert, the Earl of Devon and others. It accused these people of debasing the coinage, imposing extortionate taxes and enriching themselves to the utter impoverishment of the king’s true commons, and said that the nation had now fallen into great poverty, misery and lawlessness such as that found in the reigns of those other deceived and misa
dvised kings, Edward II, Richard II and Henry VI.
Finally it summoned all true subjects to meet them at Canterbury on the following Sunday.
The king read this proclamation twice with deepening outrage. The three kings mentioned had all been deposed, and two of them killed. He gave it to Lord Hastings and his brother Richard, who were in the room with him. Hastings read the proclamation with eyebrows raised, while his brother remained watchful and wary.
‘My lord – this is treason,’ Hastings said.
‘What would you have us do?’ his brother said, but the king hardly heard him. He was thinking of his other brother and his cousin the earl. He could feel the muscles of his neck contract like taut cords; blood infused the tiny capillaries of his eyes.
On Hastings’ advice, he sent a copy to Lord Herbert and the Earl of Devon, bidding them to come to him with as many men as they could muster, and then he went to Nottingham to wait for them.
More news followed. Crowds of armed men had flocked to Canterbury to join the king’s brother and the earl. And Clarence, it seemed, was already married to Isabel, Warwick’s daughter.
The man known as Robin of Redesdale was marching south towards the men of Calais and Kent and all the king could do was to wait, hoping to intercept the two armies at the point where they might meet. His brother Richard and Lord Hastings both advised him against doing anything else until Lord Herbert and the Earl of Devon arrived. They did not have nearly enough men, they said.
But Herbert did not arrive. And the king, growing impatient of waiting at Nottingham with no reinforcements, moved towards Northampton in the hope of meeting Herbert’s army. He stayed at Olney, where he learned what had happened to Herbert, who had been on his way to meet him when he was attacked by Warwick’s men.
The Earl of Devon had fled, or not turned up, leaving Herbert to face the onslaught. And he had fought, and lost. More than five thousand men were dead. Herbert and his brother had been executed by Warwick, who now planned to execute the queen’s father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John, at Kenilworth.
The messenger looked grim, as well he might; as if he anticipated execution himself for bringing such appalling news.
Hastings asked gently what the king would have him do.
‘Do?’ he said. ‘What is there to do? You can dismiss my men – they are easy targets here. Tell them to go home. I will wait here alone for my cousin.’
He said this in the heat of the moment and was to regret it, for almost immediately his remaining lords deserted, taking their troops with them.
But his young brother stepped forward. ‘I will not leave,’ he said. His chin jutted forward, his grey eyes were hostile and cold. He hated Clarence – they had never been close as the king and his brother Edmund had been, because Clarence had tormented Richard when he was young.
He looked very young now, like a mutinous child. He was not yet seventeen. When Edward was that age, he thought suddenly, he had still had a father, and a younger brother who was his greatest friend, and none of the burden of kingship had fallen on him.
Now his greatest friends were his youngest brother and this older man, Hastings, who would not leave him. ‘I am going nowhere, either,’ Hastings said, and the king laughed shortly. ‘Well then, there are three of us,’ he said. And felt a surge of emotion; not anger, nor gratitude, nor the desire for revenge, nor love, but some combination of all of these. It moved him powerfully so that he stepped forward and embraced his brother, holding him for longer than he liked, feeling the stiffness in his shoulders and chest, the slightness and toughness of his build. He always held himself thus, as though in preparation, or training.
Then he released his brother and clasped his face, looking into his eyes where he could see himself reflected. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You at least are loyal to me.’
Richard stared back at him. ‘You are my king,’ he said.
‘I am your brother,’ Edward said, and he clasped his shoulders once more and shook him briefly, then turned to Hastings and clasped him also. But his emotions ran too high to speak.
They prepared themselves for the night they must spend in Olney.
It was Lammas Eve, the night sacred to the Old God, when men reap what they sow. And it was sultry, without a breath of air. The king removed his outer clothing then said he would go out alone.
They argued, of course, then said they would go with him. But he wanted to be alone.
And there, in the street, under the night sky, he understood fully what that meant. Stripped of kingship, robes and all the trappings of state. No men, no weapons, nothing.
He turned round slowly, looking up at the stars.
Here I am, he said in his heart, and, Do what you will.
He felt the silence pressing in on him from the walls and houses of the street. It came to him that he was, in this solitary state, quite free. He might walk away from this inn, this village, taking nothing with him, leaving everything behind. He had never had that thought before.
But the moment passed. He went back inside. And slept more soundly than he had ever slept.
Until the knock came.
The king was captured at a village near Coventry … and he was sent to Warwick Castle where he was held prisoner. This calamity had been brought about by his own brother, George, Duke of Clarence, Richard, Earl of Warwick and his brother George, Archbishop of York … In case his faithful subjects in the south might be about to avenge the great insult inflicted on the king [they] transferred him to Middleham Castle in the north.
Crowland Chronicle
31
Margaret Beaufort Makes a Plan
The news from Edgecote pierced her like an arrow. She knew at once that her son must have been there.
‘Herbert will have taken him,’ she said.
‘You don’t know that,’ said her husband.
‘I do.’
‘Why would he take him?’
‘Why would he not?’
She sent a party of men to find him under the leadership of William Bailey, wearing armour and carrying weapons under their cloaks. They were to go first to Raglan to see if her son was still there and, if not, to find him whatever it took. She gave William Bailey money for the journey, and for her son, and to reward anyone who might have helped him. She did not say, If he is not alive then the money must be used to bring him back to me, because she couldn’t speak those words.
After they had gone she picked up her quill and wrote another letter to the king, urgently requesting permission for her son to be returned to her. It was not right, she said, that he should be caught up in these wars.
She did not consult her husband about this letter since he had advised saying nothing. She dispatched it secretly with a different servant who was going on an errand to the city.
Then all she could do was wait in silence because there was nothing to say; sleepless because she spent her nights staring into the darkness.
Oh God, let him be safe.
Dear God, thy will be done.
But she did not trust the will of God.
She could not comprehend the enormity of living in the world without her son.
She had lived without him for many years, of course, but not without the hope of him.
She could not live without that hope.
Oh Lord, return him to me, she prayed. Sweet mother of Jesu, send him back.
But the news that reached them at Woking was not good. They heard there had been more than 40,000 men at Edgecote and half of them were dead. Then that only 5,000 were dead, then 10,000. Warwick was even now rounding up and executing the others. All the captains were executed.
That might mean that William Herbert, the man who had been her enemy for so long, was also executed. But there was still no news of her son.
If her son had been with his guardian, Warwick would have him now.
She did not want Warwick to have control of her son.
She considered sending another party of men to th
e battlefield and to the surrounding area, asking for news. Then she thought that she would go herself.
Henry came on her as she was getting ready to leave. ‘What are you doing?’ he said. When she did not answer he said, ‘No. It is out of the question.’
‘I can’t sit here waiting.’
‘It isn’t safe for you to go. I can’t allow it.’
She glanced away so he wouldn’t see the expression in her eyes. He was always there; older, wiser, telling her what to do.
‘When your son is found,’ he said, ‘safe and well as he will be, do you think he will want to hear that his mother has gone risking her life on some foolish errand?’
She clutched her cloak to her. ‘I can’t stand it,’ she said.
He came up to her, taking the cloak from her hands. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Henry is safe, I know it. There will be news, any day now. And when it arrives you will want to be here to hear it, will you not?’
She couldn’t help it, she cried. He didn’t like it when she cried and neither did she. But she felt so powerless.
Henry would not physically stop her from going – he had never physically restrained her in their married life. Even so, somehow, he was impossible to gainsay. He sat down on the bed, drawing her to him awkwardly, patting her shoulder. He would not let her leave.
That night, after taking one of her own herbal brews, mixed with wine, she fell into a heavy, troubled sleep. And had an old dream: that she was a child again, hurrying along an endless corridor, and at the end of it was the devil, waiting for her.
He had always been there, waiting for her.
She woke with a sensation of pain in her sternum, as though an arrow was stuck there. She was convinced that she was feeling in her own body the shaft that had pierced her son.
