by Paul Doherty
‘Who is there?’ I called out.
‘Be still, my Lord.’ The voice was soft but menacing. I sat up, my back to the bolsters, my hand searching under the coverlet for the fine, razor-sharp knife I always kept with me at night.
‘Your dagger is here!’ I saw the glint of steel and heard the dagger as it fell with a soft thud to the carpet. ‘No need to be afraid, my Lord. I simply bring messages.’
‘From whom?’
‘Oh, from different people who wish you no ill but regret your present allegiance.’
‘Why should they do that?’ I asked, staring into the darkness, trying to catch a glimpse of my midnight visitor.
‘Because,’ this time I caught the sing-song tongue of the speaker, more suited to a troubador or story-teller than a possible assassin. ‘Because it will lead to perdition. We hunt the boar, my Lord, and though it may swerve, turn, fight or hide in the deepest thickets, we will root it out.’
‘The King is crowned,’ I replied. ‘He is much loved.’
‘The King is a usurper,’ came the tart reply. ‘Who cares for old Dickon with his smooth smiles and false gestures? He is an assassin and has been from the start.’
‘You mean the Princes?’ I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth.
‘Oh, the Princes, they are gone.’ The fellow sniggered. ‘I mean much worse than that. His own brother, my Lord, the late, dead King Edward, taken ill suddenly whilst boating on the Thames.’
‘Richard of Gloucester was in the north at the time.’
‘Oh yes,’ the fellow replied. ‘But his agents were here. Why not ask them? On the same night King Edward died, even before dawn, one of Richard’s agents, Mistlebrook, hastened to the house of a man called Potyer. He dwells in Red Cross Street near Cripplegate. Mistlebrook told Potyer that the King was dead. Do you know what Potyer’s reply was, Lovell?’ The mysterious visitor did not wait for my answer. ‘Potyer said “By my troth, man, then my master, the Duke of Gloucester, will be King.” Now, my Lord Lovell, do you not think it is strange? Here is an ordinary citizen of London. He knows when the King died and immediately hastens to one of Richard’s agents to give him the news.’
I stared into the blackness; my visitor’s words vexed me, for I knew Richard Potyer. He was an attorney in the Duchy of Lancaster’s chancery, and before that, when Richard was Duke of Gloucester, Potyer had been the Princes’ attorney in the court of chancery.
‘Oh, there’s more,’ my visitor whispered. ‘No doubt, my Lord, you will be returning north, back to the White Boar’s den. The city of York where the usurper vaunts he is loved so much. Make enquiries, Lovell, especially at the church of St. Peter’s. You will find a Mass was offered up there for the repose of King Edward’s soul two days before he actually died. Make other enquiries. You will find Duke Richard was preparing arms and men long before his brother died, using the war with Scotland as a pretext for his secret preparations.’
‘Why do you tell me this,’ I asked, ‘when only a few hours ago you sent an assassin to kill me?’
‘I sent no assassin,’ came the cool reply. ‘You see, my Lord, you do not know your friends from your enemies. I merely come to tell you this, to make you think. To consider wisely whether Richard of Gloucester is as sure on this throne as he thinks he is.’
‘You are Percivalle, are you not?’
‘Yes, I am Percivalle, my Lord, and perhaps we shall meet again.’ The candle was suddenly extinguished. I heard the room door open and close. I jumped from my bed but, fumbling around in the dark, by the time I opened the chamber door and looked along the darkened passageway, there was nothing but the usual creak of timber and the howl of a dog in the far distance of the night. I went back, lit the candles and, taking pen and a scrap of vellum, began to itemise what I had learnt.
Item – Richard of Gloucester had seized the throne. He proclaimed his own brother’s marriage as bigamous and therefore his nephews, the young princes, were bastards with no claims to the throne.
Item – Richard had brutally executed all those who dared oppose him: Lord Hastings and leading members of the young prince’s council; and the Earl Rivers, Lord Richard Grey, Sir Thomas Vaughan and Sir Richard Hawkes, who were beheaded at Pontefract, their naked bodies thrown into a common grave.
Item – The two young princes had been placed in the Tower, given a certain amount of freedom but eventually shut up in the keep.
Item – The Princes had been withdrawn from public view, their servants had been dismissed. They were confined to a chamber in the turret in the White Tower, being served by only one man, William Slaughter, a retainer of the Duke of Norfolk.
Item – Sir Robert Brackenbury seems to be innocent of any violence against the bastard princes, yet he is evidently ill at ease and appears to be concealing something.
Item – The Tower was visited by three members of Richard’s council: Norfolk, Buckingham and Sir James Tyrrell, the King’s Master of Horse, his principal henchman, who came to the Tower some days before Brackenbury noticed the princes had vanished.
Item – There are rumours about the Princes being dead but the agent Percivalle evaded this issue whilst the Woodville woman, their mother, seemed not too distressed. Surely, if the Princes were dead and such information had been communicated to her, she would have become hysterical?
Item – Finally, is this all a travesty? Has my master the King had the Princes executed? Is he, as Percivalle maintains, an assassin, and has been one from the start? Was he responsible for the murder of his own kin, laying down a well devised stratagem to remove his brother and then his nephews from the throne?
I sat back on the bed, looking up at the red-gold canopy above me. I thought of Richard, not as a King but as my fellow-squire years ago at Middleham Castle. Perhaps that was my weakness, I constantly saw the boy and not the man. I thought of Richard as I had last seen him at Minster Lovell, his face pale and pinched, gnawing his lower lip, the eyes hooded, the small wiry body tense with nervous energy. Did Richard also put his trust in the bonds of boyhood? Did he believe I could be duped, using me as a pawn to show his household and Court that he was no murderer, no spiller of innocent blood? Events earlier in the year crossed my mind. They seemed an age away, in that happy time when I was a henchman in the Duke of Gloucester’s household and happy to be so. Oh, we all knew Edward was dying. His great frame sodden by drink, his belly sagging like a pregnant woman’s, but his brain had still been razor-sharp, the cornflower blue eyes confident and assertive. But then he died suddenly. Had it been poison? Was Richard responsible? The conversation between Potyer and Mistlebrook could have been treasonable but, there again, Richard had no choice but to assert himself. He openly told us so in those secret council meetings held in Middleham Castle after the news of his brother’s death. Time and again he had shown us what would happen; how the Woodvilles would dominate London, control the Tower, the Courts, the Exchequer, the Armouries and the Treasure Houses. How the Queen’s other son, the Marquis of Dorset, had the fleet in his grasp. Her able and efficient brother, the Earl Rivers, had the young Edward in Wales and would pour honeyed poison into the young prince’s ear about his other uncle far away in the north.
I, like Ratcliffe, Catesby and Tyrrell, had agreed Richard should move; we were all swept up in the excitement: Richard’s secret alliance with Buckingham and Hastings, the seizure of the young prince at Stony Stratford, the imprisonment of Rivers and the turbulent march on London. The sudden collapse of the Woodville party seemed to indicate that God was with us and after that, like knights charging in battle, we were carried forward by the force and speed of our own movements. Richard could never give up the Protectorship and then, as an answer to a prayer, Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells had declared King Edward IV’s and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage to be bigamous. The Princes were bastard issue and, as in the twinkling of an eye, Richard seized the crown.
I had been party to this. Oh, yes, as I now stare death in its sku
ll-like face, I admit I had reservations, secret doubts, but I buried these. Yet, sitting in that upper chamber in Crosby Hall, I had to face fresh doubts. Was Richard an assassin? Was he a consummate actor and liar? The safest answer would have been that he was, and in two days I could have been at one of the Cinque ports and across the narrow seas to Brittany. Yet I had other doubts. Why should Richard murder two young princes? Their deaths would only alienate the people. Yet, even if he had issued the order, would a man like Brackenbury, even though he was new in his office as Constable of the Tower, agree to such a task?
I looked at the other possibility. Did the Princes escape? Not by themselves, two young boys could never effect that. There were three possibilities. First Black Will, the varlet Slaughter, might have abducted them. Tyrrell might have done likewise, but why? A dangerous, volatile man. Sir James was loyal to King Richard. The only other possibility could be Buckingham. This over-ambitious Duke was now plotting against the King. Had he used his visit to the Tower to abduct the prisoners? I cleared my mind of all doubts and fastened on this. If Buckingham had taken the Princes, this would account for the Woodville woman’s lack of real concern; then he surely would have sent them abroad? Not to Brittany. He would not hand such powerful pawns over to the Tudor. The safest place would be the court of the grasping, shrewd, spider king, Louis XI of France.
The next morning I kept to my chamber, constantly reviewing my conclusions. I dismissed Percivalle’s visit for the time being as mischievous. I was certain that similar approaches must have been made to other members of Richard’s entourage (in this I was proved right). The most interesting aspect of the spy’s meeting with me was his hint that the Princes might still be alive, which confirmed my belief that they might well be in France. I called Belknap to my chamber. He came wary-eyed and watchful. I made no reference to recent happenings but told him how I wished him to travel immediately to France. He was to bear messages of good will from the Chamberlain of King Richard’s household to Louis XI and his Court.
Richard had already sent his herald, Blanc Sanglier, to Plessis-les-Tours, and another envoy, Doctor Norton. Belknap’s mission, however, was to be informal; he was to collect information, particularly any knowledge on the part of the French about the young princes. He was to be discreet, expeditious and secretive. Surprisingly, Belknap seemed happy with such a mission. I told him that the necessary letters, warrants and credentials would be ready. He was to leave as quickly as possible and report to me by letter, if his journey home be hampered.
After Belknap had left, I met once again with the Duke of Norfolk. We discussed general matters, particularly the conspiracies in London and the surrounding shires. Howard was insistent he move back into East Anglia where he could more easily call up levies. We considered the possibility of arresting Buckingham but I agreed with the Duke that such a venture would be highly dangerous and quite impossible to execute. Instead, we decided letters should be sent north to the King, advising him of Buckingham’s treachery and the growing discontent in the south.
I hung around London for days kicking my heels whilst waiting for the information I had requested from Norfolk. At last it came. Roll after roll of coroners’ reports, listing those people found dead in the city between the 27th July and the beginning of August. I had chosen those dates deliberately; the man I was seeking had either fled from London or, on the basis that he knew too much about the secret plans of the great ones of the kingdom, would have been brutally murdered. The lists made sombre reading: men and women killed by sickness, accidents or some fierce affray – but most were named, well-known in their wards, whilst those who were classed as strangers were too old to fit the description of the man I was looking for. Eventually, I noticed one. A young man, a stranger, whose throat had been cut, the corpse dumped in a small alleyway off Cheapside.
I promptly sought an interview with the Duke of Norfolk, now finishing his preparations to leave the capital. He greeted my arrival with obvious annoyance. He was tired of answering questions about a matter he did not give a fig for whilst, as he said, all around us were seething hotbeds of conspiracy.
‘My Lord,’ I explained, ‘I realise this matter does not concern you but it does me and, I must remind you, also the King. Is there anyone in your household, one of your retinue besides yourself, who could recognise Slaughter?’
‘Why?’ The Duke ceased whatever he was doing and came close. ‘Why, Lovell? What is the matter?’
‘I have examined the coroners’ rolls and believe I have found the corpse of a man who matches Slaughter’s description. He was found on the night of August 2nd near Cheapside and has been interred in a pauper’s grave in St. Botolph’s churchyard outside Newgate. I intend to exhume that body, my Lord, and I want someone to view the corpse.’
Norfolk shrugged, and calling his servant, asked him to send for John Howstead, the sub-controller of the household. Howstead was a young, dour, bitter-faced fellow who greeted my request with dark looks and bitter muttering. However, when the Duke rapped out an order, the fellow grudgingly agreed to accompany me.
Seven
I remember it was a hot day. The streets were packed and the stench was so offensive I kept a nosegay to my face, as much to ward the smells off as provide a disguise. I had also arranged for two workmen from Crosby Hall to accompany three of my retainers, placed a good few paces behind me as protection against any attack. It was a long, hot walk, down Cheapside through the offal and rubbish of the Shambles, past Newgate prison to St. Botolph’s Church. A dark area of the city. Many of the prostitutes who plied their trade in the locality stood in darkened doorways, hair dyed, faces heavily painted, calling out lewd invitations to us as we passed. Howstead, his face plum-coloured with embarrassment, kept up muttered complaints but eventually shut up when I stopped and glared menacingly at him.
The priest of St. Botolph’s answered my pounding at his door. At first he was going to refuse, his poxed, sallow features suffused with righteous indignation. He scratched his shoulder-length, greasy hair and considered my request. Finally, I produced both my dagger and the general warrant from the King. The fellow quickly agreed and, after consulting a book he brought back to the doorway, led me and my companions across the overgrown churchyard to a desolate, shady spot beneath a huge overhanging elm tree.
‘The fellow was buried here,’ he mumbled. ‘I forget exactly where.’ He smiled, showing a row of blackened teeth. ‘I remember the grave was shallow for the ground was hard to break up. It will be even harder now.’ I gestured to the workmen to begin digging. The priest was right, the ground was iron-hard, and the labourers quietly cursed each other, the task, and, with angry glances at me, high and mighty lords. Time and again they uncovered some pathetic sight, the coffin of a small baby or the yellowing skeleton of some derelict. Howstead, unable to bear these sights, walked away. After a while so did I, standing in the cool porch of the church until the shouts and cries of the priest brought me back.
‘They have found your corpse, my Lord,’ the fellow observed sardonically. ‘Come! Have a look!’ I moved over, noticing the face of one of the workmen was almost a whitish-green. They had disinterred a shapeless canvas bundle. I took my dagger and, holding the nosegay over my nose and mouth, cut the cheap canvas covering. The corpse lay as it had been buried, naked except for a loincloth, any clothes or jewellery having been stripped by either the priest or those who had buried the body. The stench, even after a few days, was rank and offensive and I had to stop myself gagging. The eyes were shut but the mouth yawned open, the skin dirty, puffy-white and damp; from ear to ear ran a long purple gash. I called Howstead over. He took one look, turned away to vomit, nodding his head in recognition.
‘That’s Slaughter!’ he gasped. ‘God damn you but that is Slaughter!’ I patted him gently on the shoulder, tossing coins to both the priest and the labourers.
‘Take care of the corpse,’ I said. ‘Howstead, come with me.’
Outside the churchyard I questio
ned Howstead carefully. Satisfied with the information, I dismissed him and ordered my three retainers who were waiting there, to follow me at a safe distance. I was glad to be free of that evil churchyard and Howstead’s mournful company, pleased to be in the sun even though I had to make my way through narrow streets, dirty, greasy and darkened by the houses packed next to each other. The upper tiers were gilted and gabled, jutting out to block the sunlight, built according to chance and hazard rather than any set plan.
I thought of Anne, fresh-faced, vivacious, the cool chambers of Minster Lovell and the lush greenness of its meadowlands. I was tired of London, quietly cursing the King’s task. At last we were back into Cheapside, amongst the stalls, booths, the shop fronts lowered, hanging by chains, the constant din of the tradesmen behind me.
‘Fresh fish!’ ‘Sweet plums!’ ‘Apples fresh off the branch!’ ‘Portions of hot meat!’ ‘Wines from Alsace!’ Apprentices plucked at my arm, trying to inveigle my custom, but I kept my head down and they let me go with strange oaths and cries of ‘Go, by cock!’
Sitting here alone, I realise the contrariness of human nature. Then, I wished to be in Minster Lovell, now I desire to be back in Cheapside with the sun blazing above me and the press of people about me so great I found it difficult to walk. I am sorry – I break my pledge not to look back with the great wisdom of hindsight. At that time I was afraid of being attacked so I kept my face down, taking care to avoid the lords, the young gallants in their silk doublets with fiercely padded shoulders and high waists, their sleeves puffed out in concoctions of velvet, damask and satin. Such men were dangerous; one of them might have recognised me and not every courtier in London, as Norfolk and I knew, was loyal to King Richard. At last I turned off Cheapside, down a number of side-streets, past houses fair and foul. I skirted the Poultry, where the stench of offal from the slaughter-houses made me feel nauseous as I remembered the corpse I had just viewed.
