Under the Hog: A Novel of Richard III

by Patrick Carleton

  Then the trumpets blew again. King Richard was out of his tent. He wore the beautiful white harness, damascened with rayed suns and silver boars, that he had carried at Tewkesbury, and rounded his basnet, like a halo, was the gold circle, crosses alternating with fleurs-de-lys, that stood for a King. White Surrey, the big, pink-nosed charger that he only used on state occasions and at war, was held for him. A groom swung him up, and he lifted his battle-axe so that it caught the sun and split it into needles of light, signing them to ride on. Now for it, thought Francis Lovel, now for changing England.

  Their way led up first: over a brow, down and across a brook, then up a slope which had a village on top of it. They swung left and saw a lump of wood, rich green in the morning, and a high ridge, hollow fields between them. They had come to Radmore Plain. Like a hairy caterpillar made of metal, a long undulant thing bristling with points, their line wormed up toward the ridge. John Howard’s banner was ahead, and just in front of Lord Lovel rode the King’s standard-bearer, Sir Percival Thriball, sitting very stiff in his saddle and holding up the gilt pole with the leopards and lilies. Then the view opened to them. From the ridge the ground ran very sharply down and there was a flat space, green and un-populous, with a bright little river through it. Beyond that again, they could see trees and tents. With difficulty, in his armour, Lord Lovel swung himself up in his stirrups to look. Yes, perhaps a mile away and a mile apart, there were two camps separated by a wood and a church-tower peeping over it: the Stanleys. Nearer and on his left he saw the marsh that Henry Tydder must come round. A very distant sound of bugles disturbed the air.

  They halted: three blocks of metal and colours sat like three stones of a battlement along the ridge of Ambion Hill. A call sounded, and the captains of the two wings touched their spurs to their mounts and rode in toward the centre. The King sat his horse under the limp standard, his axe in his right hand and his left bunched on his hip. He had turned to face his own men. There was a lark singing.

  Lord Lovel watched the officers. The Duke of Norfolk, in black armour with the silver lion on his basnet, looked as he always did. His son, the Earl, was smiling happily as though he expected a good morning. Henry Percy looked old. Confound the fellow, Lord Francis thought, I know it’s the truth that no Percy for four generations has died in his bed, but need he look as though we were at a funeral? After all, this need not be his last day on earth. He might die in some other battle.

  “My friends …”

  The King’s voice was as gentle as ever; would not reach far enough, Lord Lovel thought.

  “My friends, I shall not make you a long oration. You know that the devil has entered into the heart of an unknown Welchman whom none of us ever saw, exciting him to try for a crown, and at that the crown of England. You know that he is a man of small courage and less experience. You know that most of his force consists of Frenchmen, men whom our ancestors overthrew oftener in a month than they would have supposed possible in a year. You are not afraid. You are Englishmen and know how to deal with Frenchmen and traitors. Your work’s easy. If this Henry Tydder, this bastard begotten in double adultery, were to be King of England it could be only by the utter disinheriting and destruction of all the noble blood of this realm. If a Welchman and a bastard sat on the English throne of the Plantagenets, can you imagine anything so monstrous or unnatural that it might not follow from it? Old England itself would crumble. There would be nothing left secure, nothing of our familiar life safe. Murder, incest, adultery, the subversion of Holy Church, the sale of England not simply to the French — for this fellow has already pledged himself to surrender our true and just title to the crown of France — but to the Scots or the Easterlings, for what I know: all this would follow the victory of Henry Tydder. Let us thank God such a victory is not possible. What is a handful to a whole realm? Every one of you give but one sure stroke and the day’s ours. Do this to save our old England that we know and live in. God and St. George!”

  The blare and rumble of voices went up round them: “St. George! A Richard! A King! God and St. George!” The noise had not died down when he shouted in a new voice, high and carrying:

  “Look! Look!”

  Lord Francis trotted his horse to the edge of the slope to look. They were there. The marsh was a big smudge of green spotted with clumps of purple flags like ulcers and wrinkling up here and there into a little mound where a bush grew. It looked like a disease of the landscape, a place of leeches. Round its far side a curved glimmer, recalling water in moonlight, was slowly crawling. He could make out individual heads under steel coverings, a few horses. The rebel army was deploying, moving from left to right in front of them. There were two divisions. The first, like the head and neck of a snake thrusting out of its hole, was past the marsh already. Lord Lovel, working his two-handed sword out of its sheath, could see the banners. A silver mullet dropped in front: John Vere’s blazon, the old star of Lancaster and defeat. The man whose wife King Richard had pensioned was ordering battle against him. A spotted dog showed up next. Lord Lovel, thinking of his own blazon, grinned. There are curs as well as hounds. Sir Gilbert Talbot had been a trusted subject once. A queer blazon next: he narrowed his eyes at it: a white hood. That was Sir John Savage. A white shroud to you, Sir John, you whorson: you’re the blackest traitor of the whole pack of them. But no matter: you are the only Stanley who will draw sword against his King to-day. That was the first division: not more than two thousand. Jesus, thought Francis Lovel, this will be a massacre. Here was another device, heading the second ward: three ravens and a chevron. That looked Welch: aye, Sir Rhys ap Thomas of course. Wales was doing its best for the Welchman, but a raven was the right sign. The ravens would be dining presently. That was what was oozing out from behind the marsh and spreading itself on the plain: a raven’s dinner, carrion that did not know it was dead yet.

  The last standards, a clump together, were in sight now, not forming beside the others but halting behind them: a red dragon on white and green, a portcullis, a red rose. Lord God and all angels, thought Lord Francis, the little man’s not even going to fight. He’ll wait in the rear and let the others die first.

  A trumpet seesawed a long chain of notes.

  “Lord Level, Lord Ferrers, Sir Richard Ratcliffe, Sir Gervaise Clifton, Sir Robert Percy, Sir Percival Thriball, remain horsed and keep by me. My Lord of Lincoln, take the rest of the middleward and advance. Strike hard. God be with you.”

  It was the King’s voice. Lord Lovel saw the others who had been named closing in round him: Lord Ferrers, short and fresh-faced, Sir Gervaise Clifton with his red cheeks and gentle black eyes looking almost girlish under his basnet, Sir Percival Thriball with the standard. Drums and trumpets were making a great racket now as the Duke of Norfolk’s and the King’s ward began to move together down the hill. The Earl of Northumberland and his division did not stir; were a reserve for the moment.

  There was a thump of hooves behind them. Sir Robert Brackenbury, a big, slow-spoken man, had ridden up. King Richard turned in his saddle to look at him. His face was ten years younger than it had been overnight.

  “You gave my message to Lord Stanley?”

  Sir Robert Brackenbury was out of breath.

  “Gave it, your Grace. I said: My lord, the King salutes you and commands your assistance, or by God, your son shall instantly die.”

  “He said?”

  “He’ll come. Sir William Stanley will do nothing either way; won’t join the rebels. His brother swears that of him.”

  “Good.”

  “If he’s coming,” said Sir Richard Ratcliffe, “he should be here by now. I can see his camp as plain as my hand. He’s not stirring.”

  Things had begun to happen on the plain in front of them. The thick line of the King’s people had gone swinging down the slope of Ambion Hill at a fast walk. Sun took their basnets and sallets and the heads of their long pikes. John Howard of Norfolk led his ward on foot. They could see him wave his long-hilted five-foot battle-s
word. Some of the men were still cheering. The rest had taken up songs, or whistled and called insults to the French and Welchmen. At the same time, the two little clumps of men beside the marsh had joined together, as if huddling themselves small before the attack. Now they reformed themselves in an odd way: a straight line broken at regular intervals by wedges of men standing out from it like prows of ships.

  “Array triangle,” said Sir Richard Ratcliffe, and whistled.

  It was the terrible old device on which, in Harry of Monmouth’s day, the French had broken themselves again and again: wedges of archers joined by lines of knights and pikemen, a toothed thing like a wolf-trap. A frontal charge against it was almost suicide.

  The King’s divisions had halted. Those who watched them from the crest of the ridge heard the short sudden “Ha!” of the archers, and saw men pitch forward suddenly out of the jag-toothed rebel line, falling down with the clothyard shafts in them. It would be an archery-duel for now.

  “The devil take that double-tongued Stanley,” shouted Sir Robert Percy. “What’s he about? Now’s the moment to take the bastards from behind. Why doesn’t he charge?”

  No men were issuing from Lord Stanley’s Camp that made a distant splodge of white and colours against the green of Bosworth Park. But in the camp of his brother, Sir William, there appeared to be a certain stirring. The conspicuous blood-red surcoats of his men could be seen massing and clothing, forming into some sort of order. They looked remote and meaningless, like red ants on a turf.

  “Didn’t you say,” said Percy to Sir Robert Bracken-bury, “that Sir William would not fight?”

  “All Stanley said was he would not fight against the King. He must have changed his mind and mean to join his brother. They’ll both come in together on the Welchman’s rear.”

  “I hope …” said Percy. “Great Jesus, look!”

  A loud noise of voices, a pandemonium, came up the hillside. The divisions of Norfolk and Lincoln were charging with their pikes levelled.

  “The fools,” shouted Richard Ratcliffe.

  King Richard’s face had changed suddenly. He lifted his hand, opening and shutting a steel fist on the air.

  “Norfolk, Jockey,” he said in a small, suffering voice, “never charge that, man. Stand and use the bows.”

  The smash of the lines meeting was like the smash of a shipwreck. John Howard of Norfolk had been at the foremost of his division. Now, as the two sides swayed a little apart again after the first shock, they could no longer see him.

  “Jockey,” called the King again, and beat his steel fist down on the pommel of White Surrey’s saddle. Lord Lovel heard himself groan.

  The lines had joined again; were a long, writhing snake of men that twisted about on the flat ground. Whoever had fallen at the first impact would be trampled to mud now. Behind the mêlée, clear to be seen, the standards of the red dragon and the portcullis, cognisances of Tydder and Beaufort, stood quite still. The little Welchman who never saw an army until today was letting his friends fight as they best could without him.

  “I am thirsty,” said King Richard in a small voice.

  “There’s a well behind us,” Lord Ferrers said.

  The King wheeled White Surrey suddenly.

  “Come with me. I’ll have no more of this. I’ll put an end to the business. We’ll not wait for Stanley.”

  They swung back toward the low trough of plain between the hillocks. A foolish exultation beat up and up, like the voice of the lark still charming the air above them, in Lord Lovel’s chest. This was the way to end a battle: King against would-be King, a charge and the swift killing of the right people. This was a tale that would please Ratcliffe’s chroniclers. He wanted to throw his sword in the air and cheer. The well was only a little spring in the low ground. King Richard’s basnet, with the gold circle in which the Black Prince’s Ruby glowered like a drop of blood, shimmered as he slid quickly over his horse’s side; knelt and pushed his face down like a dog and sucked water. Then, without help, he was on his feet again. His eyes were as open as a hawk’s, glaring. He smiled through the water that ran down his face. Sir Richard Ratcliffe leaned out of his saddle to help him up. He put his hand to his vizor to snap it down over the white joyful smile on his face.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  The earth complained of their horse-hooves. Their harness clattered. Moved by the wind of their speed, the English banner unfurled itself with a thick crackle like eagles’ wings. Lord Lovel, peering through the bars of his own vizor, swinging his sword as he rode, saw trees and greenery curve past him. They were round the hill and heading for the marsh, calling to one another like peewhits.

  “St. George!” yelled Robert Brackenbury. “King Richard!”

  “God and the King!”

  “St. George!”

  Their horses snorted, thrusting their necks out. They had passed the edge of the marsh now. The battle was to the right of them; was a hubbub, a dense contention of colours glimpsed with the tail of the eye. But straight before them was what they had come for: the little clump of men staring with white faces at their charge, the banner of the red dragon amongst them on its gilt pole. Henry Tydder was there, the bastard-descended Welchman who had dared to rouse the old devils of England against King Richard.

  Lord Lovel, gripping his horse between his thighs, saw the King pass him; gold of the crown, steel of the axe, on fire in the sun. Someone — he looked a giant on his tall horse — had hurled himself forward from among the Welchman’s guards. Like an oak over a shrub, he impended above the King, whirling a sword. There was a crash, and King Richard was charging forward, heading straight for the standard. The giant lay on his back on the tramped marshy turf; lay still.

  The pattern of men had changed. There were dead bodies around Lord Lovel in the track the King had driven. He fancied that he himself had killed one of them. Ahead, he saw the red dragon standard waving like the standard of a ship in storm. A gold-ringed basnet and a whirling axe were coming down on it.

  “St. George!” shouted Lord Lovel. “St. George and King Richard!”

  He saw the standard go down in the mud under White Surrey’s forefeet, the standard-bearer dropping with his head smashed; saw the leopards and lilies of England streaming on behind the King, and a little figure in new armour that could be, must be, only Henry Tydder wrenching frantically at its horse’s head, trying to turn out of the mêlée. He saw more than this now. Fresh men were coming up behind the shattered and shrinking knot of Welchmen. There could be no mistaking the blood-red coats of Sir William Stanley’s following. He has thought better of it, he told himself, urging his horse on. He has thought better of treason and skulking like a dog whistled by two masters; has joined us. He cheered: now England, a clean England again and the troubles done with.

  “King Richard! St. George!”

  Something new was happening. Henry Tydder had got his horse round; rode like a possessed man, hunted by devils, toward the red jackets. No blow was aimed at him. The pikes stabbing upward and the swung blades that Lord Lovel looked to see mangling him dropped or swung sideways. The line opened, and he was through; then closed again, making a barrier between him and the King. At the same moment, the or and azure of the English banner swayed sideways. A man in the Stanley colours had struck with his pole-axe at the standard-bearer.

  Above the noise of it all, clear and desolate as the cry of a seagull, Lord Lovel heard the King’s voice. It shouted one word; repeated it:

  “Treason! Treason!”

  His axe whirled up and down again. A crowd of the red coats were between him and Lord Lovel. Lord Lovel, cursing, slashed right and left at them; felt his sword bite. Over their heads he saw Richard Ratcliffe, at the King’s side, drop from his saddle. He saw the King’s axe lift again. Men in red jackets were all round him, thrusting up at him with pikes, chopping with maces. White Surrey seemed to disappear and go down in a swarm of red that closed over the crowned basnet of his rider.

  “No!�
�� shouted Francis Lovel. “No, no …”

  If you enjoyed Under the Hog check out Endeavour Press’s other books here: Endeavour Press - the UK’s leading independent publisher of digital books.

  For weekly updates on our free and discounted eBooks sign up to our newsletter.

  Follow us on Twitter and Goodreads.