by Amy Licence
‘Mother, mother, we’re home, we’re safe at last. We sailed in a huge boat, there was a storm! Is Edward really king? Is it all over at last? Are we to stay here at Greenwich?’
‘So many questions!’ Cecily breathed, kissing the top of his head.
Eight-year-old Richard was soon upon them, trying to push between his mother and brother. He was more subdued, the enormity of the moment capsizing any words that might have been welling in his chest. Instead he buried his dark head in Cecily’s lap and looked up at her with eyes that spoke of sensitivity, of passion and understanding beyond his years, with the same touch of melancholy that had characterised Edmund’s. His mother swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat and bent down to kiss him.
‘Now, my darlings, come inside. This is our new home. You must tell me all about your adventures.’
*
The sun blazed down over London out of a vivid blue sky. Through the maze of streets there was a blur of activity and colour, a blur moving as if was the lifeblood of the city’s veins, snaking its way among the buildings, a blur that hummed with voices like so many bees at work in high summer. Then, above it all, louder than the mayor shouting orders or the choir singing, came the drone of trumpets. The rapport was picked up at every station and repeated, so that it ran like an echo, rippling out to every corner of the walls. The very bricks vibrated with excitement to hear those first warning notes, for the king was coming.
A procession rode out through the gates of the tower. First, there appeared the knights of the garter, dressed in their robes of midnight blue touched on the shoulder with a froth of white lace: the newly knighted Hastings and Norfolk, followed by the king’s brothers, George and Richard, now made the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester respectively, then Warwick and George Neville, Fauconberg and Herbert, all those who had stood loyally shoulder to shoulder with the house of York. As they emerged into Tower Street, the bells of All Hallows’ and St Dunstan’s began to peal and people lining the streets, ten deep under the streaming banners, raised their voices to cheer. After them came the figure they had assembled to see: King Edward IV, seated high in the saddle, his horse trapped in gold and tawny silk, with emeralds and diamonds at his throat and sparkling on his doublet. He held himself straight and tall, his hazel eyes fixed ahead, his profile clean and sharp with its straight nose and generous lips, the aristocratic nostrils and well-moulded chin. A ripple of crimson and ermine hung from his shoulders, draping down his back and lying across his saddle. On top of his sandy curls was fixed a gold coronet set with a single ruby, the size of a child’s fist.
At St Andrew’s Church, the procession turned down St Botolph’s and into the wide space of Thames Street. Colourful banners, silks and carpets hung from the windows and ribbons were strewn high across the route, billowing up and down as the breeze caught them. Those flowers left over from adorning the doorways were strewn across the street to be crushed under the feet of the approaching horses. As the train moved forward, the people called to Edward by name and, in spite of himself, his face split into a brief smile. They passed by St Magnus and the entrance to London Bridge, through Bridge Ward and the Old Swan Inn, into Candlewick Ward, where the bells of All Hallows the Great threatened to deafen the singers below it. Then they were into Dowgate Ward, where Warwick’s house ‘The Erber’ stood, and on to St Martin’s Vintry and St James, Garlickhythe. Edward knew it was coming. He had not returned to the Salucci house on the corner of Trinitie Lane since he had learned of Alasia’s death, haunted as it was with the memories of their stolen happiness.
As the procession approached, he could see it was much changed, freshly painted, with new shutters and a wooden sign hanging over the door, depicting a bulbous flask of liquid. A family stood in the doorway, a woman with a child in her arms and a man wearing the robe of an apothecary. Edward glanced up to the window of the room where Alasia had used to sleep, perhaps even the room where she had delivered their child, where Edward himself had once stood at the window, or crept into the darkened room and surprised her. The memory of her sleeping returned to him, her hands folded under her chin and her long dark hair loose over the pillow. It gripped his heart but he fixed his eyes ahead and rode on. Soon they would pass Baynard’s Castle, Blackfriars and cross the Fleet, then it was on towards Westminster.
*
They were gathered in the abbey, where the gold hangings reached the floor. Some of the faces he had known since childhood, others had served in one of the Yorks’ houses or were allies of the Nevilles or Howards, servants of Salisbury at Middleham or those who had been pardoned for their offences and sworn an oath of loyalty. A few had been known to the family since the early days, from Cecily’s childhood, or those who had rocked Edward’s cradle in Rouen. There was the white head of his old tutor, Peter, his eyes red and raw as he watched the young man approach. There was the Ludlow stable hand, the baker and the physician who had cured his childhood illness and the Fotheringhay cook and the wet nurse. Familiar faces were turned towards him as he walked the length of the aisle, resplendent in his robes. Halfway along he recognised the smooth head of Earl Rivers, beside his wife Jacquetta, whose silver-threaded veil caught the light. Edward recalled the moment in Calais last year, when he, Salisbury and Warwick had berated the upstarts and held them prisoner. It had been no surprise for him to learn that Rivers and his son Anthony had fought on the side of the Lancastrians at Towton. Only his royal pardon had saved them, accounting for their presence now, dazzling in the jewels brought from Jacquetta’s former existence. And with them, their serene daughter Elizabeth, her lidded eyes cast down, her beauty concealed by the widow’s veil she had adopted since the death of her husband at St Albans. The pardon was enough. Edward did not feel the need to acknowledge them, but kept on walking, his head held high.
Towards the altar his eyes found his mother and sisters. Cecily had drawn back her veil and the pale contours of her face in the gloom made her seem much older. But in her expression he understood everything: this was her moment, her rightful moment as the Duchess of York, descended through the line of John of Gaunt, the wife of the heir to the throne. It should have been her and York walking towards the altar now, robed in gold, ready to be anointed and crowned, had there been any justice. Briefly, the throne had been held before her, a dazzling opportunity that would have seen her become England’s queen: nothing less than queen by rights. But it had passed, in bloodshed and tears. This was the next best thing, watching her son’s coronation.
And what a coronation: such a day would be remembered for decades to come. England had not witnessed the crowning of a king in over thirty years and the abbey’s nave, with its gothic pillars soaring away into the skies, was hung with scarlet and cloth of gold. Thousands of candles and tapers burned bright and the air filled with song and incense, crackling with anticipation. And the new king was celebrated in ballads and songs, in imagery painted on parchment rolls, likening him to Moses and Joshua, who led their people to victory, his roots spiralling back to Adam and Eve, with roses and heraldic shields and hands of God, as he sat astride the creation of the world, mounted in armour, with plumes on his horse’s brow. And the poets wrote his name in gold, and called on the astrologers and astronomers to seat him in the tree of knowledge, at the centre of the earth, at King Arthur’s right hand. People in the streets spoke of his victories at Northampton and Mortimer’s Cross, of the omen of the three suns in the February sky and the slaughter of Towton, where the fields ran red with blood. As he walked towards the altar, he was overlooked by the tombs of dead kings and the shrines of Edward the Confessor and other saints. Each seemed to be urging him forward through the ancient stones, wishing him well, with encouragement and words of warning, to take his place in history.
Thomas Bourchier was waiting in front of the coronation chair. Fashioned from oak, lathered in gilt, it was carved with animals and birds, with curling foliate shapes and painted with the figure of Edward I, resting his feet upon a lion. But to
Edward, all these details blurred into one, in a haze of red and gold, with the waving of hands and the bowing of heads, as the archbishop spoke the coronation oath. The words seemed to pass quickly and wash over him.
‘All this I promise to do,’ he heard himself say. ‘All this I promise and more, in the name of God, Amen.’
Gentle hands removed his cloak. He was guided to the gilded seat and turned, facing the crowd, as he took his place. The weight of thousands of eyes did not oppress him. Bourchier moved slowly, stilled by the momentous occasion, to anoint him with oil upon the head, heart and hand. Then came Lord Hastings, to present him with the spurs of chivalry, the bishops to offer him the sword of state, Norfolk to hand him the orb, Herbert with the sceptre and his own young brother George to slip the gold ring upon his finger, to signify his marriage to the state. Behind him, Bourchier was holding up St Edward’s crown, studded with its heavy jewels.
His hands full of all these riches, his throat choked with tears, Edward could not speak. In this holy place, he felt the press of the past, present and the future; of the boy he had been at Ludlow, impatient for the days to pass, of running through the long grass with Edmund, of riding into London with his father, of holding Alasia in his arms. And now, the sad and solemn faces of his mother and sisters, of this expectant crowd and the bodies of the recent dead eaten by worms under the Yorkshire soil. And the future, stretching before him like a mist, where no doubt he would be put to the test as a son of York, as the first Yorkist king of England.
But the abbey bells were ringing and the trumpeters were sounding a fanfare up to the rafters. And the people had risen to their feet, crying, ‘Long live the king, long live King Edward IV.’
