by Paul Doherty
Perhaps my lack of interest in the buttery had soothed the anxieties of this most secretive of spies for, once the castle was thronged with soldiers, I learnt that no one had left. I seated myself in the great hall beneath its smoke-blackened timber beams, and questioned each of Princess Cecily’s retainers. The process was long and exhausting. I had the Queen Mother’s steward sitting alongside to ensure no one staged any pretence and eventually I had trapped my quarry, a young fellow, perhaps in his early thirties, with tousled black hair and an open frank face. He introduced himself as William Collingbourne, a gentleman from Wiltshire, and of Princess Cecily’s household. He had the effrontery to think he would escape. I formally arrested him, loading him with chains to take him back to London, and his cool demeanour began to crumble.
I ignored the due process of the law and swiftly transported him to one of the dankest cells at Newgate. There the questioning began, first by me, afterwards by those more skilled in wrenching out the truth – dark, shadowy men who lived in the twilight of the law, garbed completely in black, their faces hidden by red masks. They tortured Collingbourne. He broke and confessed, admitting he was a loyal adherent of both the Tudor in Brittany and the late, but not lamented, Duke of Buckingham. He confessed he was the Tudor’s agent, sending him information about the King’s defences both on land and at sea, as well as being the author of the doggerel rhyme pinned to the door of St. Paul’s Cathedral. Once news of his confession had reached me, I insisted on questioning him myself and went up into West Chepe to the sombre, stark buildings of Newgate prison. These are no more than a collection of towers and tenements built into the old city wall. A pest-ridden place, as on its far side was the city ditch, the open latrine and cesspit of London.
Richard Scarisbrooke, royal serjeant and Constable of the King’s prison, insisted on greeting me himself. A frightening sight. Tall, angular, dressed in a dirty red gown tied loosely round the middle, he tried to ape the manners of a courtier. His lean, sallow face with its deep-set eyes and mouth tight as a purse, was covered in small black warts, but his yellow hair was crimped and curled like a boy’s. He stood like Satan with his minions around him, a collection of rogues dressed in black rags and leather aprons. They escorted me in mock solemnity through the prison courtyard to Collingbourne’s cell, a stone cavern, with wet mildewed walls and rotting black straw, with rays of light let in through the cracks and seams of a heavy trapdoor. A diabolical place, I describe it, yet I have found there are more terrifying prisons to die in than Newgate.
Scarisbrooke lifted the heavy trapdoor and lowered a ladder for me to go down. I was not frightened of Collingbourne – he lay in a pile of wet straw in the corner manacled by chains to the wall whilst I was armed with sword and dagger. God have mercy, I pitied him. He was a dreadful sight. Clothed in rags, his body seemed to be a mass of wounds, his eyes half-closed with bruises, the blood still seeping through smashed teeth and swollen lips. He may have been broken but there was still a spark of defiance in his eyes.
‘Viscount Lovell,’ he grated. ‘Welcome to my humble abode.’ He raised a chained hand. ‘If I could, I would make you more comfortable.’ I turned and bellowed to Scarisbrooke, standing above me, to throw down a bottle of wine and a rag. These he did, and, crouching close to Collingbourne, I bathed his lips with the wine before raising the leather pannikin to squeeze some into his mouth. He thanked me with a look before falling back against the wall.
‘Master Collingbourne,’ I said. ‘Or shall I call you Percivalle? I am sorry to see any man in this state. Even one who has tried to assassinate me at least twice.’ Percivalle, his mouth slack, shook his head and muttered something. ‘What was that?’ I asked.
‘Never once,’ he said. ‘Never once did I attempt to kill you.’ I knew he was telling the truth and I briefly wondered who was behind the attempts outside the Tower and in the tavern after I had met Brampton.
‘That may be so,’ I replied. ‘But you know why I am here. Not your links with the Tudor but the fate of the Princes. Different stories circulate,’ I said quietly. ‘They are murdered. They have disappeared. They have been taken abroad. In God’s name, Collingbourne, before you die, tell me the truth!’ The prisoner just looked at me. ‘Did you know William Slaughter?’ I asked. ‘Black Will, a gaoler from the Tower?’ Collingbourne shook his head. ‘Who then,’ I insisted, ‘told you about the Princes?’
‘Buckingham,’ he replied. ‘I met him,’ he licked his bloodied lips, ‘I forget the day, some time at the end of July. I met him in his London house. Proud as a peacock he was, nervous but excited. He gave me two messages. The first was the Princes were dead; I was to circulate this news around the city. The second was that the Princes had escaped. I was to take that information to the Woodville woman in Westminster Abbey.’
‘You did not ask Buckingham to explain the contradiction?’ I asked. Something close to a grin flitted across Collingbourne’s face.
‘Who cares, Viscount Lovell? Who cares? Buckingham? Richard? The Princes? They do not concern me. The rightful claimant now hides in Brittany, but, like Arthur of old, he will come again.’
‘Tell me one final thing,’ I asked. ‘Was all this Buckingham’s work?’ Collingbourne laughed, his bruised chest racked with sobs.
‘Buckingham,’ he gasped, ‘was a peacock. He had a brain and tongue like quicksilver but others manipulated him.’
‘Who?’
‘I do not know. They worked in the shadows as Buckingham and I did. Buckingham concealed himself under friendship to Richard; I thought no one would suspect a retainer working in the Queen Mother’s household.’ He shrugged. ‘You cannot be too confident, my Lord. And you should remember that!’
Thirteen
I left Collingbourne in his wretched prison and returned to the palace at Westminster. A letter was waiting for me from Anne. I had expected it for weeks and knew, as I cut the purple ribbon, it must contain some bad news. Oh, she was well, enjoying the full beautiful summer, the green fields and cool trees of Oxfordshire. All was well, but the child, born late, had died after two days, quietly in its sleep. She prattled on about other news but I knew Anne was trying to control and conceal her searing pain of loss and desolation. I just stood there in the window embrasure looking down at the rose gardens of Westminster Palace, the tears streaming down my cheeks, unable to express the deep, sobbing cries I felt within me.
There was other dismal news to echo my own. The King’s plan to seize Henry Tudor had gone amiss. Someone had warned him so Henry had sent letters to Charles VIII of France asking him for sanctuary. Once this was granted, the Tudor acted quickly. A group of supporters under his uncle, Jasper Tudor, left Vannes ostensibly as envoys riding to consult with Duke Francis who still lay ill in a castle near the French border. They then abruptly changed direction, riding directly into Anjou and a warm welcome from the French. Two days later, Henry Tudor and a small party left Vannes on the pretence of visiting friends. Once free of the city, he hid in a wood, quickly changed clothes with a servant and rode hard for the French border. They reached it only a few minutes before troops sent by Chancellor Landois also arrived. Duke Francis of Brittany recovered, publicly upbraiding his chancellor and allowed the rest of the English exiles to join their master in Paris.
The news from Anne, as well as that from France, threw me into a deep fit of depression. Two days later, having despatched a quick letter to the King, I and a small party of servants rode back to Minster Lovell. I stopped caring about the King, about Henry Tudor, about the stinking city and its seething hotbeds of conspiracy. I wanted to be free of it. I am not a religious man. I am a member of the Guild of Holy Trinity. I have built chantries, had Masses said and given grants of land and money to a number of religious houses. I know there is a heaven and a hell and above them Christ sits in judgement. On my ride back to Minster Lovell, these thoughts began to trouble me. Were Richard and all those around him cursed by God? The King had lost his son, his wife was dying and, whilst the Tu
dor danced and feasted in France, Richard could trust no man. His own mother was alienated from him, Buckingham and others had risen in rebellion. Was it because of what Richard had done? God’s punishment on Cain the murderer? And was I to be included in this? My wife weak, torn by grief. My first-born son, a pathetic little bundle buried in the cold darkness of Minster Lovell church.
When I reached the Minster, my black mood of depression had deepened. Anne, pale-faced, her eyes red-rimmed with weeping, did nothing to allay my evil humours. Her show of gaiety was forced. After she greeted me in our chamber, she just crumbled like a wet rag onto the bed, her body shaking with sobs of anguish. I sat beside her, stroking her long black hair. Over near the wall, a small wooden cot which should have held my son now stood empty, a grim reminder of our loss and deprivation.
God knows I tried to comfort her but for weeks she was withdrawn, suffering a deep melancholy of the spirit. I called a physician but his remedies of fennel, hart’s tongue, sugar and white wine did little to help Anne’s condition. I dismissed him, feeding her myself on eggs beaten into milk. I insisted she walk with me every day in the gardens and the small pleasaunce we had built there. The year drew in, days and nights turned colder. In the evenings we would stay before the great fire, playing Primero, Hazard, or other games of chance. Slowly she recovered, but a harder, more thoughtful Anne emerged and, God forgive me, the canker was placed in the rose. At first, just comments, observations, but Anne began to take great interest in the affairs of the Court and my involvement in them. She gently reminded me of the darker side of Richard’s character. The bloodlust after Tewkesbury when the Lancastrian generals had taken sanctuary in the abbey there, only to be dragged out by King Edward and his brother Richard to face summary trial and execution; Richard’s ability to act, dissimulate, to be loyal to his friends but ruthless to any who opposed him.
Anne constantly talked about the fate of the Princes. Where were they, she would ask? What had happened? They were in Richard’s hands. Bastards or not, they were still his brother’s sons, his own nephews. What man could kill young boys, having snatched them from their mother? I saw the storm-clouds gathering. I argued back, demonstrating how it was Buckingham who had insisted that the Princes be placed in the Tower, that Richard had no choice but to take the throne. The boys might well have been illegitimate, and whether they were or not the Woodvilles would have used them to destroy both him and me. Anne angrily brushed such observations aside.
Late one October evening, the trees outside being stripped of their dying leaves by a cold, howling wind which lashed the mullioned windows with raindrops, Anne stated her accusations.
‘Your master,’ she hissed, ‘is no more than an assassin!’ She saw the look of anger in my eyes and came to crouch by me, putting her head in my lap. I stroked her slowly, sadly. The sight of grey in her once jet-black hair soothed my anger, resolving me to let her speak.
‘Francis,’ she whispered. ‘Can’t you see God’s judgement is against Richard? His own son gone, his wife dying, his enemies both at home and abroad waxing stronger by the day. And we, Francis, we are caught up in the same trap. God is judging us.’ She looked up sharply at me. ‘I know what you are involved in, Francis. I know the King’s secret matter. I have listened to you talk to Belknap, heard the rumours. Francis, we must do something. Distance yourself! Take careful counsel, for if Richard falls, and I believe God will drag him down, must we go with him?’ I tried to calm her, reason with her, point out my friendship for the King, his good service to me, the titles, the lands, the bestowal of the Order of the Garter, but she would not listen and a gulf grew up between us.
At night we both lay silently together. At first I rejected totally what Anne had said, but the doubts began to grow. God appeared to have turned his face away from me. I had heard about the new theories coming from Italy and France claiming there was no opposition to a King when what he wanted had force of law. Had Richard thought about that when the order was issued for his nephews to die? I could imagine Catesby, a clever lawyer, silver-tongued, the devil’s advocate, succinctly arguing how the crown of England was worth two lives. After all, had not thousands died in the bitter civil war? What were two lives when weighed against the common good? Two secret executions were not too high a price to pay for peace and strong government. If so, Richard had been using me, a pretext to cover his own guileful ways.
The doubts hardened into certainties. Belknap returned from across the seas, tired and exhausted. He vehemently denied there were any rumours, stories or legends about the Princes’ possible survival in the dowager lands of Margaret of Burgundy. I was pleased at his return, his calm, assured ways. His quiet jokes which made Anne laugh. His shrewd subtle hints, how he believed Henry Tudor would soon invade, possibly next spring. And, looking at me, he said it would be wise if we all took careful stock of the situation.
Of course Richard sent letters to me, begging my return to Court. I listened to how the King, under a golden canopy at Nottingham Castle, had formally accepted James III’s offer of peace. How the King’s rule was growing stronger; lawlessness was curbed, the seas and highways made safer for travellers, the dispensing of justice more rigorous and exact. I described this to Anne and Belknap who had slowly insinuated himself into our conversations. They just ridiculed the news. Belknap declared how horse-dung may make a rose smell sweeter but it still remains horse-shit. This time I did not argue but turned away, leaving Belknap and Anne together discussing some matter or other. At the beginning of November, just after All Hallows, William Catesby arrived at Minster Lovell, bearing a letter from the King. Oh, no request or pretty plea, but a cold formal letter: I present myself in London by the end of the month to be one of the judges at the trial in the Guildhall of William Collingbourne, accused of high treason.
I took Catesby, that secretive man of strange counsel, into the buttery. I served him myself while asking how things were.
‘They go well,’ he replied smoothly. ‘But we miss you, Francis. The King is hurt by your absence, angry that you have left the secret matter.’ He looked at me out of the corner of his eyes. ‘Francis, we have all risen high, you included. You should not forget that. You have made enemies, Francis. They say you are ungrateful. Others whisper the word “treason”.’ I seized both his wrists until I saw the pain in his eyes.
‘Master Catesby,’ I said hoarsely, ‘I am the King’s true man.’ The lawyer smiled but his eyes were hard, uncowed.
‘I believe you are, Francis,’ he answered. ‘But we both know what is coming. Winter will pass, the storms abate and the Tudor will sail from France. You have heard the news?’ I shook my head. ‘John de Vere, Earl of Oxford; he has escaped and now feasts with the Tudor in the silken palaces of Paris.’
Even I, distanced as I was from Richard, knew this was dreadful news. John de Vere, Earl of Oxford! A die-hard Lancastrian, and their most capable general, the only one Edward IV had ever feared. Thirteen years ago he had commanded the Lancastrian right wing at the battle of Barnet. I remember being there on the slopes of that long hill ten miles north from London. The evening before Easter Sunday, but the weather was cold. A dense sea-mist rolled in covering the valleys, shrouding everything in a deathly silence broken only by the men-at-arms in their iron harness and the archers in padded leather jackets. There was no sun, no moon, just this deep fog which hid noise and made our armour icy and clammy to touch. The battle began hours before dawn. A vicious, bloody fight, hard to distinguish friend from foe. Richard and I were on the right wing, trying to turn the Lancastrian left so as to swing behind them. The battle was nearly lost; on our far left John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, rolled up Hastings’ men, the impetus of their charge carrying them south towards Barnet before Oxford regained control and led them back.
Oxford had hoped to take our force in the rear but, in the mist and confusion, he collided with his own men under Montague. Montague’s soldiers mistook Oxford’s banner of a star with streamers for the Yorkist emblem
of a blazing sun and immediately poured a volley of arrows into them. Oxford’s force retreated and, suspecting betrayal, they fled, shouting ‘Treason! Treason!’ And the battle was over. If de Vere had had better luck, the fight could have gone differently. The earl was later captured and placed in Hammes Castle in the English-held land around Calais. Now he had escaped and was with the Tudor. The devil had broken his bonds and, if Tudor did not come back, Oxford certainly would to avenge past defeats and humiliations.
Catesby watched me digest this news as if I was eating a strange meal.
‘The King needs you, Francis,’ he said quietly. He leaned across the table. ‘Whatever you may think, Francis, remember Collingbourne’s couplet – you and I are indistinguishable from the King. If he falls, so do we.’ Catesby waved a hand and tried to encompass the whole of Minster Lovell. ‘All this will go.’ I stared at him. Whatever Catesby was, God rest his soul, he was accurate. Five days later I left Minster Lovell. Anne watched me go, her face hard, her eyes unsmiling, no hand raised in friendly farewell. Despite the treacherous roads and continuous downpour I was back in London in two days. The narrow, shit-strewn streets, the huddled houses, the merchants in the Chepe, the midden-heaps, the glorious banners of gold and purple, orange and red, the sound of trumpet and the clink of harness in the street.
I was welcomed rather coolly, Howard, Ratcliffe and others of their ilk clasping my hand while their eyes slid away as if they still liked me but did not know whether to trust me. On November 29th, dressed in my scarlet, ermine-lined robe, I joined the Chief Justice and other judges of the King’s Bench, together with Norfolk and other earls, to try Collingbourne. This did not take place before the great marble bench of the King’s Court at Westminster but in the great cavernous Guildhall, as if the King wanted Londoners to see justice done. We judges sat high, behind a green-baize table on the broad dais at the far end of the Guildhall. On either side of us tables for the secretaries, scribes, clerks and lawyers. Collingbourne was brought before the bar. He looked pale, dishevelled, tired, but the torture had stopped and some effort had been made to tidy him up for his appearance in court. He rested almost nonchalantly on the bar, the great beamed rail which separated him from the dais, coolly inspecting each of us. When he saw me sitting at the far end, he smiled lazily, as if we were two friends meeting before a stall in Cheapside or a tavern in Southwark.
