Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III

by Patrick Carleton

  The Duke laid his knife on his plate.

  “I have heard that talk before. Those who use it care little indeed for the good of the realm of England. Our might stands on our archers, who are no rich men. If they were made poorer than they are, how should we resist our enemies? As for rebellions, when risings have been made in this land by the commons, the poorest men have been the greatest causers and doers of them, and thrifty men have hung back for fear of losing their goods. What do you suppose it would be if all the commons were poor? By St. Paul, this land would be like the realm of Bohemia, where the small folk, for poverty, rose upon the nobles and made all goods to be in common. Give me a realm with every man wealthy in his station. Nothing can make a people revolt but lack of goods or lack of justice; and when they lack goods they will most certainly rise, saying they lack justice. With God’s help, I will see to it that the people of the North shall not want for either. Until they are secure in that, they will not know — certainly know, not simply believe or hope — that my brother is the best King England has seen since Edward the Great: and until they know that, my work is not done in the North.”

  “That’s a noble way of talking, your Grace. Aye by God, noble, that’s what I call it. But if we’re to teach these crofters and fullers and woolmen and candlemakers that the King’s Grace wants nothing better than to see ’em all wealthy as ticks — God’s body, think of the insolence they’ll put on.”

  “My Lord Scrope, I was a little boy when my brother, your cousin, was crowned King of England; but I’ve learnt the words of his first speech to Parliament by heart. He said: If I had any better to reward you withal than my body, you should have it. Those words were spoken to all England. Our Lord Edward offered his body, like our Lord Christ, for the service of all. Holy Church will tell you that your soul and mine and Hick the hackneyman’s are as even in God’s sight as three peas in a peascod. I tell you that a good King — and do you doubt my brother is that? — rules all to serve all: burghers, commoners, knights, clerks and nobles, every Christian soul breathing in his England.” There was a moment’s silence. Then Lord Lovel said gaily:

  “It will be a good England: justice from my Lord Richard for the North, clemency from my Lord Edward for the South. John Vere goes to prison at Calais instead of to the scaffold. At this rate the King’s Grace should have no trouble raising money from Parliament.”

  For the last time, the trumpets assaulted the warm air. The subtleties were being carried in: great piles of cunningly delicate sugar-work shining like Bruges enamel. There were three of them: an argosy in full sail with St. George’s cross displayed, a tower with a man-at-arms on it and, largest of all, the Duke’s silver boar, tusked and bristled with gold, having the motto, Loyaulte me lie, on a collar round his neck and a scroll in his jaws bearing a distitch of kitchen-verse:

  Behold ye mighti bore yt can orthrowe

  Al rebels & fals traytours att oon blowe.

  The confections were more admired than tasted. Each one was ceremonially broken into and the guests served from it; but their appetites were buried and drowned. They picked and toyed at the jagged lumps of sugar; sipped the hippocras which was poured out for them and scarcely reached their hands towards the bowls of oranges stuck with cloves and preserved fruits in syrup that were served to end the meal. Silence overcame them and they moved ponderously in their chairs. Sir Richard Ratcliffe smothered a belch. Fresh water was brought and they washed their hands; after grace went burdenedly, stretching their backs and yawning, across the hautpace to the Privy Chamber.

  Here there was plenty to entertain them: chess, checquers and brightly-painted cards. Most of them settled down sleepily to these diversions, and presently Duke Richard, Lord Lovel and Lord Howard were alone at the far end of the room. The Duke asked Lord Lovel if he had seen much of the King.

  “A good deal, all his business considered: I hunted twice with him at Windsor.”

  “He’s finding time for sport, then?”

  “When did he ever not? He says he must do something to subdue his fat. It’s rich living in England after Artois: and by God, Richard, Westminster’s not the only place where a man can burst like a sheep in clover, it seems. That supper’s given me a belly like a Prior’s.”

  “The porcupine was very choice,” said Howard. “I never ate better.”

  “I am glad. Will you take a turn in the Chamber of Presence to digest it?”

  They went out. The long, emblazoned room was empty, and they walked its length and back in a silence only broken by the clicking of Duke Richard’s dagger in its sheath. Finally, in his remotest voice, the Duke said:

  “What is this I hear about the wife of some London merchant?”

  “It’s all true,” said Howard, after a silence. “Jane Shore, her name is: a pretty woman, nothing in her body you’d have changed, unless to wish her somewhat taller.”

  “The devil take her body,” said the Duke unemphatically. “Is Edward making a public scandal with her?”

  “Well, she comes to Court. She goes to Windsor with him.”

  “And what does the Queen say?”

  “The Queen’s Grace,” said Lovel in his pleasantly ironical voice, “seeks in all things only the comfort and good pleasure of her sovereign liege and most dear husband. I may add that Mrs. Shore has considerable acquaintance among the family of Wydvylle, who seem friendly disposed to her.”

  “So: then there are two Wydvylle women at Court instead of one?”

  “You might say so, yes.”

  Lord Howard fiddled with the jewelled chain about his neck.

  “Your Grace’s brother of Clarence speaks very decidedly on that topic.”

  “He does?”

  “He said to me not long ago that when he broke his oath to his great father-in-law it was to help his brother, and not a pack of jumped-up country knights and common whores.”

  “I hope it was only to you he said it.”

  “It wasn’t,” put in Lovel. “He’s been saying it to everyone in hearing whenever he gets a pint of malmsey under his belt.”

  “St. Paul, is he drinking again?”

  “Like a sponge.”

  “I could wish he had a bridle in his mouth. Some loving friend will go tattling to the Queen about him if he talks at that pace.”

  “That will have been done already. The Court’s a whispering-gallery of Wydvylles these days. What from Sir John Fogg — blessed Mary, how perfectly I hate that filthy fellow! — and Hawte and their new Welch friend Sir Thomas Vaughan, you can’t spit but the Queen hears of it. Hastings is angry about it. He has his own spy now, too: that little clerk, Catesby.”

  “A clever creature,” said Duke Richard.

  “Hastings finds him useful. You know, of course, that Marguerite’s old friend Morton, the Rector of St. Dunstan’s, has been pardoned and made Master of the Rolls?”

  “Yes, yes, I’d heard that. Is he a safe man? Stanley was very urgent with my brother to take his head off.”

  “Safe he may be,” said Howard. “Sly I’m sure he is. The Queen takes notice of him. She’ll have him of her faction before she’s done.”

  The Duke’s hand came away from his dagger.

  “Do not use that word faction. We’re at peace now. It has too much of a sound of the old days.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing about Morton,” said Lovel. “It was he and the Wydvylles between them contrived the undoing of the Archbishop of York.”

  “That is a story I should like to hear at large. I knew Edward meant to take order with George Neville, but that is all.”

  “It’s a pretty tale. After Barnet fight and his two brothers’ deaths, the good Archbishop buried his plate and treasure; had no great wish King Edward should have the use of it. Then time goes by and our Lord Edward makes no move, so George Neville pokes his head out of his burrow and says: ‘What, am I alive still? This is a clement King’: and he curries favour. The King receives it all with a smile and a clap on the back, and it see
ms to George Neville as though the good old times were come again. Then one day the King sends him a message that he will come to hunt and sport with him in his manor at Moor. George Neville, very glad, digs up his fine things and borrows others; arrays his manor as richly and pleasantly as he can. But the day before the King’s Grace was to come he is ordered suddenly off to Windsor and there — by God, it was a cruel joke even though it was a good one — arrested and impeached for high treason on a charge that he’d helped the Earl of Oxford. He’s in the Tower now: and that’s not the best of it. Edward took every parcel and particle — coin, plate, jewels, tapestry, the devil knows what — of all the stuff that he’d got together at the Moor; took it simply, borrowed or not. He even broke the Archbishop’s mitre, that was full of rich stones, and made a crown for the Queen of it.”

  Duke Richard did not say anything to this immediately; finally asked:

  “You say the Queen’s kinsfolk and Morton were behind this?”

  “I am sure of it. Morton supplied the evidence — forged it, for what I know — and the Wydvylles had most of the gain. Why not? Archbishop Neville’s not the man his brothers were. If he’s forfeited his goods, you may say what was got with sin is lost with sorrow.”

  “And there’s the last of the house of Neville,” said Lord Howard, “except for its womenfolk.”

  “It is time we rejoined the company,” said Duke Richard.

  The company were more than half asleep. Under the brightness of candles the strong colours of the Privy Chamber only mocked the tiredness and surfeit in their faces. It was past ten o’clock. Lord Scrope, at the moment they came in, made a silly move and lost his queen to Northumberland; pushed the ivory pieces, clattering away over the board. “My wits were in bed an hour ago. I’ll yield the game.”

  Linkmen came to answer a tinkle of the Duke’s bell. The company kissed each other good-night. Duke Richard escorted Northumberland courteously over the hautpace to the door of the chamber he was sharing with his personal grooms. Lords Lovel and Howard had the room next to him. At the door of it Duke Richard put his hand on Lord Lovel’s wrist, emerging delicately from the immense furriness of its sleeve:

  “Come with me for a little.”

  Two linkmen and two pages attended them back, with tired, careless feet, over the hautpace, through the Privy Chamber and Chamber of Presence, over a hautpace again. The Castle had gone suddenly dead, sordid. There was a stink of snuffed candles and wine, and the air from outside did not refresh them; only made them more aware of headache and bad flavours in their mouths. Patterns of moonlight had a look as though they would have been significant if the mind had strength to concentrate on them and secure their meaning. It was cold.

  In his own chamber Duke Richard dismissed the attendants and sat in a painted chair, not troubling to have it brought nearer the fire. His hair was a little disordered by now and he had the expression of a man studying something. Two triangles of the dark appeared to have settled like moths under his eyes.

  “Well?” asked Francis Lovel softly, after a long while.

  Duke Richard put the heels of his hands into his eye-sockets; pushed upward slowly, disordering his hair more; then tidied the locks round his face as though he did not know he were doing it.

  “Is there any news, Frank?”

  Not certainly knowing either why he did it or whether it would be permitted, Lord Lovel sat on the arm of the Duke’s chair and kissed his smooth, tight-skinned cheek. The Duke turned his head away a little; made no other gesture.

  “No, Dickon, no news at all.”

  “You spoke to George?”

  “Twice, alone, and once to Isobel.” Lord Lovel jerked up from the chair-arm and went to lean on the stone mantel, feeling the fire against his silk-sheathed legs. “Dickon, Clarence is hopeless. Forgive me, but it’s half drink and half ugly cunning. He grumbles. Nothing is right for him and nobody loves him. He sees an affront where his worst enemy would not have meant it: and for this matter, he swears she walked out of his house when he was the last person who expected it and that he’s hunted her high and low for no purpose ever since. I can get no further than that with him, drunken fool’s-head, and when I pressed him, he went all flaming and asked if I was calling him a liar. I think he is one. Forgive me, Dickon. I do. Isobel’s frightened of him. I’ll swear she knows nothing. But Clarence is hiding something. If he doesn’t know where she is, he knows why she left him. So God help me he does; but I can’t get farther with him. Jockey Howard and I tried the Sanctuaries: no sign of her. She’s not at Beaulieu with her mother. She wasn’t with her uncle George, or we’d have heard when he was seized. I’ll renounce God if I know where to look for her now.”

  “Have you tried Cock’s Lane?”

  “Oh Christ!” Lord Lovel banged the carved overmantel with his slight hand. “For God Almighty’s sake don’t take it so hard, Dickon. It’s not as bad as that. She can’t have come to that much harm, I tell you. Don’t think of such things.”

  “How can I know?”

  “Dickon, stop putting yourself to the brake like this for all the hallows of England’s sake. She’s safe somewhere. We’ll find her. There’s you with your wits and me and Jockey, and we’ve men, and we’re rich nobles. I promise we’ll find her one day. You know yourself we will. Only leave hurting yourself.”

  “Right now: leave that now.”

  “But you mustn’t think such things, man.”

  “Leave it. Leave it, will you?”

  “Very well: how does your work prosper in the North here?”

  “Clever Frank: I could almost talk about that even at this hour of the day. Frank, do you know these people here in my father’s own royal Duchy barely know that there is such a word as justice? I could tell tales. We nobles in the South-country have no understanding of what goes on here: and yet they’re good folk, true folk. I tell you, Frank, if I can have my way with this North a year or two, long enough to show ’em there’s a difference between two words, rule and oppression, by St. Paul I’ll found such a loyalty to the white rose here — and it’s here the best fighting-men are bred, you know — that neither John Vere nor Jaspar Tydder nor his little nephew shall ever dare think the name of Lancaster. This wicked folly — it is as foul as a heresy, a great lay heresy — of people and princes, that the people are for the use of the prince, not the prince for the use of the people: if I can once break it out of their slow, North-country minds, show them their rulers are not their enemies, we shall have a province to tell tales of, here in the North. Most of them hate me now; hate everyone who wears cloth-of-gold. I shall cure that. But it’s a lonely work.”

  “You’ll do it, Dickon. Tell me more of how you go about it.”

  The Duke’s smile was only a shrewd grimace of one refusing a gambit. It showed his upper teeth.

  “Go to bed, Frank. You’ve cured me for now; and God bless you.”

  “God have you in His particular keeping,” said Francis Lovel seriously as he went out of the room.

  *

  Parliament had been prorogued to February next, after a hard day of it. It had voted the cost of fourteen thousand archers to aid the King’s Grace in recovering his lawful land of France, now usurped and misruled by the tyrant, Louis of Valois. It had taken and acknowledged the young Prince Edward, who had first seen daylight in Broad Sanctuary, to be the very and undoubted heir to the crowns and realms of England and France and to the Lordship and land of Ireland. It had prayed its sovereign liege, King Edward, that the statute made against riots, maintenance and oppressions might be duly executed; and it had confirmed by common consent the release of a sum of five pounds yearly, formerly paid for the issues of bread and ale by the Chancellor and scholars of Oxford.

  Through most of the proceedings, George, Duke of Clarence, had sat with his chin on his chest and looked straight ahead of him into his own imagination, thinking how near he had been, only two years ago, to the style and dignity of George King of England, first of that name si
nce the Conquest, and to having the petitions of Parliament humbly addressed to him, to smiling and touching his hat when he rode among cheering mobs of people. I should have been loved, he thought. I should have been a kind King. I would have left all the business of statecraft and alliances to Warwick, but I would have seen the people liked me. God bless King George: they would have shouted that. Richard is cheered in the North, and Edward everywhere: only no cheers for George. A man has a right to be liked, not everywhere and always to play second-fiddle.

  After the prorogation he left the Painted Chamber alone. There was a great bustle in the streets of Westminster and on the river stairs. He did not immediately find his barge, and whilst his footmen were still yelling for it, another small procession — liveries of scarlet and silver — clattered down the stairs, and someone touched his arm. He looked round and down. His brother Richard, a white, pointed face between a jewelled black bonnet and a black-and-silver doublet reversed with miniver, was standing by him; gave him a thin-lipped and faintly deprecatory smile.

  “A seat in your barge, George?”

  “If you’re going to the Strand you may. What do you want there?”

  “Only to pay my respects to you and your lady wife.”

  “Very kind of you: Ralph, God damn your eyes, how much longer am I to be kept waiting?”

  “No time at all, your Grace: the barge is pulling in now.”

  “And time, too. You’re very friendly all at once, Dickon.”

  “Not all at once,” suggested Duke Richard: “I have been busy since I came to Westminster. We may call this a very satisfactory Parliament, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose so: why aren’t you with Edward?”

  “Because I have two brothers, George: I have seen Edward. Now I wish to see you.”

  “Edward’s getting fat.”

  They climbed into the painted barge that bore the black, gold-horned bull of Clarence at its prow. The rowers settled themselves; dipped their long oars; struck off. Behind them the wedge of ripples folded over on itself; made living, intricate patterns inside the framework of its own shape.