The Rose of York: Crown of Destiny

by Worth, Sandra

  “Lord Protector,” called Buckingham with surprise. “You are King Edward’s only surviving brother, descended from glorious Edward III by three of his five sons: by Lionel Duke of Clarence, by John Duke of Lancaster, and by Edmund Duke of York. No one in the land boasts such a claim!”

  Time had run out. There could be no more doubt; no more delay.

  “I accept,” said Richard.

  A great roar of acclamation burst from a thousand throats as he descended the stairs. “Hail, King Richard III!” they cried. “Hail, most noble King Richard III!”

  In the Hall of Rufus at Westminster Palace that same day, Richard sat on his throne. Before him were assembled, at his command, all his judges and lawyers. “As it is my wish that all men should be seen as equal in the eyes of the law, you are ordered to dispense justice without fear or favour,” he declared. “Man’s justice must reflect God’s justice. Abuse of power will not be tolerated and will be dealt with harshly.”

  He read surprise on many faces. Aye, it will take time for them to accept such a revolutionary concept, he thought. Inequality was a fact of life, a trademark of nobility, the underpinning of the feudal system. Many of them, he knew, would not relinquish power readily. “Bring in Sir John Fogge!” he commanded.

  There were gasps and shocked murmurs. Richard watched as his deadly enemy, that loathsome relative of the Woodvilles who had played a ruthless role in plundering poor Sir Thomas Cook, was escorted in from Sanctuary. Men peered from behind one another to gain a better view, and Richard heard someone whisper, “Does he mean to hang him?” Fogge’s face was indeed ashen pale as if he were going to his death. Richard rose, took him by the hand, and embraced him.

  There was a stunned silence.

  “This day, past treasons are forgiven and hatreds set aside,” said Richard. “I swear to you my friendship, John Fogge, and as evidence of my regard and faith in you, I appoint you Justice of the Peace for the county of Kent.”

  Applause and cheers shook the hall. Richard smiled. “From this day,” he called out in his resonant voice, “I date the first day of my reign. May God bless England!”

  Much business awaited Richard. There were decisions to be made regarding the coronation, appointments to be conferred, knighthoods to be bestowed. To the surprise of many, one went to Edward Brampton, though Brampton was born a Jew and had converted to Christianity late in life. But Richard had always believed a man’s worth rested on his merits, not on the circumstances of his birth.

  There was another task that brought him special pleasure. Righting the wrong done Lord Howard, he raised him to the dukedom of Norfolk, his by hereditary right and stolen by Bess Woodville for her boy, Prince Richard. On the death of Richard’s little wife, Anne Mowbray, the earldom had failed to revert to Anne’s nearest male kin, John Howard, as it should have. Bess had made sure that the child’s marriage contract bore a clause that kept the earldom for her boy. As Richard conferred the coronet on John Howard’s silvery head and placed the golden rod into his loyal hands, his mind turned to one now absent, one who had been equally loyal, who had rendered equally hard, faithful service to his King and had been rewarded with malice for his pains. If only John were here so I could restore into those noble hands the earldom that had meant so much to him!

  Richard watched Howard rise, coronet in place, golden rod in hand. John had been humiliated by his hollow title, forced to live on a pitiful forty pounds a year. That would not happen to Howard. “My good Duke of Norfolk, you are further appointed Admiral of the Seas and granted commissioner of array for the following counties…” He rattled off a third of the counties in England. “You are also granted the yearly income of twenty-three of my royal estates and the manors named herein…” He handed him a charter with a smile.

  Howard unfurled the document and gasped. “There must be a hundred manors here, my Lord!”

  “No, fair Norfolk. Only fifty.”

  Howard’s eyes glistened. “Thank you, my King.”

  “’Tis no more than your just due. Would that I could right all such wrongs so easily… John.” Richard purposely used the name he had rarely spoken since John’s death. There would never be another John, he thought as he embraced Howard, but the Friendly Lion who had escorted him to Middleham on that fateful day long ago was his link with the past, and dear to his heart.

  Then Richard turned his mind to the coronation.

  “It will be splendid,” he said to Anne that night at Baynard’s Castle while fires burned outside and drums, flutes, and soldiers’ laughter filled the night. “A symbol of what’s to come for England. A virtuous court where learning and music flourish and there is justice for the people… Where the church will be led by wise, learned men of true piety. Oh, Anne, I shall give thanks to God daily with my deeds!”

  Anne nestled in his arms on the silk-cushioned pallet in his bedchamber, feeling warm and safe, unable to remember what had brought on the attack of shivering fright the previous week. Maybe it was simply her aversion to court. Away from the North, from little Ned, from the calm of Middleham, thrust into the swirl of great events in the making, her health had suffered, leaving her vulnerable to wild imaginings… But Buckingham; was he a wild imagining? What of the hard looks he cast Richard when he thought himself unobserved?

  “Richard… about Harry… Is all well between you again—after what he said about Edward, I mean?”

  “Aah, Harry… Harry’s well meaning, but he can be rash at times. And harm’s been done, for certain… I find it strange, Anne, that a body can heal from all but the deepest cut, sometimes without a scar, yet a man’s reputation, once injured by words, never truly recovers.” Richard mulled his own words thoughtfully. “Never mind, my sweet, we’ve made peace. Harry’s remorseful and has written my lady mother an apology. I, in turn, have entrusted him with the arrangements for our coronation.”

  Anne wished she shared Richard’s confidence in their cousin Buckingham, but the reassurance left her more unsettled than ever. Buckingham…

  With a determined effort, she drove Buckingham from her mind. This was a happy time; she mustn’t spoil it with dismal thoughts. As Richard had said, what will come, will come, but whatever happened, they had been given a chance to shape the future. With God’s grace, they would leave the world a better place.

  From the crook of his arm, she stole a look at his face, dim in the candlelight. It was the right decision to take the throne, she thought. Richard would make a noble king, possibly the finest England had ever known, for he bore all the markings. She rose, went to the coffer, and took out the lute. At his side again, she strummed the chords of their “Song of the North” that Richard had composed for her as they stood admiring the twilight at Barnard Castle in that unforgettably sweet first month of their marriage.

  “Sing with me, Richard… Aye, O, aye—the winds that bend the brier! The winds that blow the grass!”

  Richard joined his deep tenor to her sweet voice. “For the time was May-time and blossoms draped the earth…”

  ~*^*~

  End of Book Two

  Author’s Note

  This book is historical fiction based on real people of the period and real events. No characters have been invented, and I have adhered to historical facts when these are known. Time, place, and character have not been manipulated, and the actual words known to have been used by the historical figures represented here have been integrated into the story whenever possible. However, details that cannot be historically verified are the product of my imagination.

  For the ease of the modern reader, the quotations used come from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, not from Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, written in Richard’s lifetime.

  One question I have been asked with some frequency regards Anne’s vegetarianism. It may come as a surprise to many that there were, indeed, vegetarians in the fifteenth century. This fact is documented by John Stowe in Stowe’s Survey of London, which has been regarded as the prime authority
on the history of London from its initial publication in 1598.1 Stowe reports that at a Christmas feast in the ninth year of Henry VII’s reign, sixty dishes were served to the Queen, Elizabeth of York, none of which were “fish or flesh.”

  As to Richard’s deformity, no one who knew him during his lifetime ever mentioned one. The Countess of Desmond, who danced with Richard at a banquet, is reported to have said that he was the handsomest young man in the room besides his brother the King. Shakespeare’s immortal image of the limping hunchback with the withered arm shouting, “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” is also disputed by Richard’s surviving portrait, thought to have been painted from life or copied from a contemporary painting, which shows a handsome, well-formed young man.2 Other facts that dispute the hunchback image are presented in Fall From Grace, the third, and final book in The Rose of York series.

  The reader may be interested to learn that no information exists as to the identity of the woman, or women, who bore Richard’s two illegitimate children. I have taken Rosemary Horrox’s suggestion that it was Katherine Haute.3 It is known that the children came to live with Richard at an early age, and when I came across a reference to his vast generosity to the Benedictine nunnery of St. Mary in Barking, Essex, which has puzzled historians, the reason suggested itself to me.4

  Proof of Edward’s bigamy has failed to survive the centuries. This is not surprising, however, in view of the fact that Henry Tudor went to great lengths to destroy evidence that conflicted with his account of events. Richard’s bloodless accession, his explicit inclusion of Edward’s troth-plight in his Parliament of 1484 when a generalization would have sufficed, and Henry Tudor’s subsequent relentless efforts to pervert or suppress mention of it, testifies to the truth of Stillington’s revelation and suggests that such evidence existed, and that it proved persuasive.

  Regarding a final and critical question: Was Richard III a hero, or a villain?

  Most modern historians accept that the origin of Shakespeare’s portrait of Richard III lies in Tudor propaganda. However, by the end of the sixteenth century, Tudor propaganda had become historical fact.

  After every conflict the victor rewrites history, and Henry Tudor was no exception. Having won the throne by right of conquest, he set a dangerous precedent for his own future. The legend of the hideous, villainous monster was deliberately initiated during his reign in order to justify his usurpation. He hired an Italian historian, Polydore Vergil, to paint his predecessor as evil and forge his propaganda into history. Sir Thomas More absorbed the Tudor version from Richard’s old enemy, Bishop Morton, in whose household he was reared as a child, but More neither finished, nor published, his account of Richard’s reign. The manuscript was discovered by his nephew fifteen years after his death, and translated from the Latin. Published posthumously, it was taken up by Tudor historians Hall and Holinshed. Shakespeare’s play sealed the legend. As soon as the last Tudor lay dead, the people of the North rallied to right the injustice done to Richard’s memory. George Buck was the first, then came Horace Walpole. With his book Historic Doubts, Walpole created a debate that rages to this day and includes both historians and novelists.

  — S.W.

  ~*^*~

  Following is an excerpt from Fall from Grace, Sandra Worth’s unforgettable epic conclusion to The Rose Of York series.

  The day dawned brilliant with sunshine for the first double coronation in two hundred years. At the hour of Prime, as church bells pealed across London, with Anne’s train following his, Richard of Gloucester left Westminster Hall for the crowning at the Abbey. Removing his shoes, he walked barefoot on the red carpet, heralds trumpeting the way, followed by his lords and a procession of priests, abbots, bishops, and a cardinal bearing a great cross high over his head.

  Richard’s gaze fell on ginger-bearded Lord Stanley carrying the mace. He remembered his own words: One thing men can rely on, as surely as spring follows winter—a Stanley will ride at the winner’s side, no matter what his sin. He hadn’t intended to reward Stanley for his treason, yet he had. To appease his own guilt for taking the life of a better man, he supposed, wincing at the memory of Lord Hastings. Even Stanley’s wife, Margaret Beaufort, had been greatly honoured this day. Harry Buckingham, a good friend and cousin, whom he’d entrusted with the coronation, had arranged for her to carry Anne’s train—she, the mother of Henry Tudor, who, now that all true Lancastrian claimants were dead, had become their claimant merely because he lived! The world was indeed a strange place.

  Richard wondered how Anne fared. Suffering from a chill and fever on the previous day, she’d been carried in a litter for the traditional journey of the monarch from the Tower of London to Westminster Palace. Much to his relief, she had felt well enough this morning to walk in the ceremony, and now followed him into Westminster Abbey. At least this once the wagging tongues that sought evil omens would be stilled.

  No one would have guessed she had been so ill, for she looked beautiful in her crimson velvet mantle furred with miniver and her fair hair flowing down her back, giving no hint of her recent illness. His sister Liza walked behind her, trailed by more noble ladies and a line of knights. His eldest sister, Nan, however, was absent. Of course his mother had not come. She had even refused her blessing. He forced the memory away. But the entire peerage of England was here. That was much to be grateful for. It meant that England accepted him with good heart.

  They approached the west door of the Abbey. The sign of the Red Pale in the courtyard of the almonry swung in the breeze. Here, in 1476, William Caxton, that old mercer of Bruges, had come to print his books with the help of the Gutenberg press that he’d brought from Germany. It was a long way they’d travelled together since that wintry afternoon in the Bruges tavern, Richard thought, marvelling at the caprices of life. He’d been a youth of seventeen then, broken-hearted, hungry, and poor, an exile from the land of his birth with little hope. Now he would be King.

  His gaze moved from Caxton’s shop to his friend Francis Lovell carrying the Sword of Justice, and he remembered a question Francis had posed when they were boys. “If you could be anyone in King Arthur’s court, who would you be?” He’d had no answer then. Lancelot, whom he’d admired as the embodiment of his valiant cousin John Neville, had seemed out of reach to him. Later, torn between love and loyalty, he had felt himself more like Lancelot than any of Arthur’s knights, for Lancelot had been the most flawed.

  I can answer you at last, Francis, he thought. I shall be Arthur, reigning with mercy and justice.

  ~*~

  The high, pure voices of the choristers lifted in praise. Song burst forth from the church: Domine in virtute…

  Richard and Anne entered the nave and proceeded down the aisle. Hundreds of candles flickered and incense ladened the air with a rich, heavy scent, sending curls of smoke wafting into the gloomy nave. At the high altar, Anne watched as Richard knelt to be anointed with the holy Chrism, and rose to be vested in his regal garments of black and gold. Girded with the sword of state, he knelt again. Old Cardinal Bourchier picked up the Crown of St. Edward and set it down on his head.

  From the corner of her eye, Anne saw Richard’s cousin Harry Buckingham turn away. As if he can’t bear the sight, she thought. Why wouldn’t this moment fill him with joy when he had been Richard’s staunchest ally, instrumental in gaining him the throne? His labours were crowned with Richard’s crowning… unless… unless…

  She had no time to finish the thought. Liza was arranging her hair, and Cardinal Bourchier was coming forward to anoint her forehead with oil. She felt his cold touch with a shiver. He held the Crown over her. She tensed. He set it down on her brow and the weight felt like a sudden blow. The sceptre and rod were thrust into her hands, and a hundred voices broke into a Te Deum. The song filled the cathedral, resounded against the stone pillars, coloured windows, and soaring arches, but in her throbbing head the chant dissolved into a chorus of jarring chords. She rose, moved with Richard to their thrones in
St. Edward’s Shrine for Mass.

  Stanley’s wife, Margaret Beaufort, appeared at her side.

  Anne felt a sudden chill. In the dimness, Margaret Beaufort’s narrow wolfish face had taken on a cruel look. Her smile seemed forced, strangely twisted, and her deep-set eyes glittered with menace. Anne chastised herself for her uncharitable thought. Margaret Beaufort has stepped between me and the candles, she told herself, throwing her shadow over me momentarily and moving into darkness herself. That was all. She was a good woman, known for her piety and favoured by God. At the age of ten she had received a vision…

  Her head ached from the noise of the ceremony. The air in the Abbey was musty, cloying, and reeked of incense and the stale perfumes of the nobles. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the sound of the cool wind sweeping her beloved Yorkshire moors, but all she could feel was the weight of the Crown. Cardinal Bourchier’s voice droned on.

  She opened her eyes. Her glance fell on Stanley’s square, bulky figure. Why had Buckingham insisted on giving Stanley the honour of carrying the mace, which rightly belonged elsewhere? Why had he heaped Stanley and his new wife, Henry Tudor’s mother, with such honours? She turned the question over in her mind, made no sense of it; because it defied reason, it acquired a suspicious and sinister aspect. Buckingham… He reminded her so much of Richard’s dead brother George. The same smile, the same golden curls, arrogance, eloquence, need for attention. The same shallowness and ambition. She couldn’t trust him, yet she knew Richard trusted him implicitly. As my own father once trusted George. She blinked, lifted a hand to her brow. Something was wrong with her sight. Shadows were everywhere, all around her and Richard. It was the fatigue and the noise. They made her mind play tricks on her. She wished the ceremony would end. But it continued. There was still Holy Communion.