The Lord of Greenwich (The Plantagenets Book 5)

by Juliet Dymoke

  With an impatience he could scarcely conceal Humfrey despatched the obsequies, murmured a prayer over his uncle's tomb, and then informed the Council that he was taking Greenwich palace for his own use.

  'How so?' Lord Cromwell demanded. 'Pardon me, my lord Duke, but surely the Earl of Somerset, or Sir Edmund Beaufort are entitled –'

  Humfrey interrupted, barely hearing him. 'My brother the late King gave the place to my uncle for his lifetime. Now he is dead. And if you recall another of my brother's dispensations was to give me all his castles in the southern part of the country.' The Earl of Suffolk opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and Humfrey, bestowing a bland look on them all, left the room. He went to Eleanor. 'Greenwich is ours,' he said.

  'Greenwich?' she queried, surprised at his eagerness. He had spoken of it but she had never been there. 'Why should you want that?'

  'Why?' he paused, astonished that she had not grasped why. 'I have always wanted it and now that I have you to share it with me it is all I could desire. I am going there now. It is not seemly that I should take you today, but soon you shall see it and then you will understand.'

  His barge took him down river, the rise and fall of the oars somehow in keeping with his own mood, the rhythm lifting his sense of anticipation as the craft slid through the water.

  The house was quiet in the afternoon light, the door draped in black cloth, no banner flying above it. A few white doves walked sedately on the lawn, fluttering away as he stepped ashore. He stood surveying the place, seeing it complete, changed under his hand to what he had always dreamed it might be. Above that turret his banner would fly, in his hall the finest scholars in Europe would meet and talk, Eleanor would grace his table and he would make his library the envy of all men of learning. Greenwich would become as the palace he had seen so many years ago when as a mere stripling he had fallen under the spell of Italy. He would have to buy more land, give it all a new name for it would be a place famous for its beauty: He would have his motto carved over the great stone chimney piece in the hall and at once the name came to him – the beautiful court, Bellacourt.

  He went in and scandalized the mourning servants by prowling about the rooms, opening doors, looking in closets, ending in the long low chamber that looked over the river, where he had once talked to John of his desire. He stood by the window looking out, seeing his barge bearing his standard, the fantails back on the grass. Bellacourt! And it was his at last.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Abbot of St Albans, John of Whethamsteade, was at a window in the gatehouse when he saw his guest arriving at the head of a long procession of riders, the banner bearing the arms of England fluttering in the warm breeze of early September. He paused for a moment, his eyes on the familiar face and a little frown drew his own brows together. Then he went down to head the usual formal gathering of brethren to meet their patron.

  The Duke, Whethamsteade thought, had done much to enhance the abbey over the years and had even drawn plans for his own tomb to be set near Alban's shrine – a design flattering to the Abbott for Humfrey had chosen an emblem to be wrought in stone showing wheat sheaves flourishing from a chalice to depict their friendship. Now they would celebrate together the feast of the Blessed Virgin's birthday, and the Abbot had ordered the preparation of delicacies which he knew Humfrey favoured.

  Formalities over the Abbot escorted him to the parlour where wine was awaiting them, courteously begging the Duke's immediate friends to accompany them.

  A lay brother brought wine and ale, and as they talked in the parlour of the latest news of the Congress being held in Arras in this autumn of 1435, the Abbot studied his friend's face. Humfrey was in one of his energetic and restless moods, unable to sit for long, pacing with a cup in his hand. The large eyes were as alert as ever but shadowed and it seemed to the Abbot that the years of struggle to hold his place, the constant conflict with Bishop Beaufort, had drained him, wearied him and undermined his health.

  'It is a travesty,' Humfrey was saying, 'a Congress that was determined on its outcome even before the first meeting. Burgundy has gone over to France and that is all there is to it. Why my brother ever thought Duke Philip to be trusted I can't imagine.'

  'You at least always knew his treacherous nature, my lord,' Hungtindon said. He had recently married the Earl of March's widow and finding Humfrey surprisingly generous in the matter of her jointure, had promptly allied himself to the Protector. The Duke of York, now out of his minority, had recently returned from ordering his estates in Ireland, a fair, blue-eyed, and strongly built young man with a sensible head on his shoulders. 'If the Congress fails,' he said, 'shall we go warring in France again, Cousin Humfrey?'

  'That is for John to say. He is insisting that the old Treaty of Troyes should be adhered to and so it should be, but as far as I can see the French have no intention of yielding one clause of it and so we have no option. Except that now we have to fight Burgundy as well as the Dauphin and the Orléanists.'

  'At least we have the Duke of Orléans still in our hands,' Sir John Fortescue put in. The years had given him a precise manner, a love for law and order. 'We have a bargaining point in him.'

  'His friends have left him to stew here these twenty years,' Huntington retorted lazily. 'Why should they care any more for him now, especially if they have Burgundy with them.'

  'The Dauphin wants him back.' Humfrey never gave Charles of France the title of King whatever he might call himself, for young Henry had been taken to Paris by Bishop Beaufort and crowned King of France two years ago and however empty the title no Englishman was going to deny it. But it had become a war of attrition between the parties and Bedford, Humfrey suspected, had grown weary of it, though no less determined. 'When the Maid relieved the town of Orléans it brought our prisoner back to men's minds.'

  'But that was five years ago,' Lord Scrope pointed out, 'and Joan of Arc long since burned to ashes.'

  Humfrey set down the cup and wandered over to the window. Below was a quiet green space where the Abbot's guests might walk, bordered with box hedges and with beds of sweet-smelling herbs, where no doubt they would talk together later. He felt uneasy as always at the mention of that strange girl with her talk of visions and voices, her courage and her earthy determination. He had never seen her and that she was a witch and sorceress seemed proven – surely John would not have consented to her burning otherwise? He scorned the French Bishop of Beauvais who had bought her from the Burgundians, claiming her for Holy Church, but orthodox as Humfrey was he would have preferred to see her sent to a penitential convent where she might have been induced eventually to forswear her wild claims. One of his own men, serving under his brother, had come home blabbing that they had burned a saint. He did not believe that but the whole business had inflamed France and he remembered how Eleanor had talked once of the innocence of certain incantations. There was no such thing as innocence in that way, he thought, and turned violently from the window to change the subject.

  The Abbot had seen the movement and after supper took him, as he had expected, down to the quiet garden where they might be alone.

  'My son,' he said in his cool, light voice, 'are you troubled?'

  'No more than usual.' Humfrey gave him a faint smile. 'In a position such as mine there is always tiresome business, wrangling, squabbles. My lord of Warwick and the Earl Marshal have been at each other's throats over a stupid feud begun by their retainers and I had to take my men to stand between them.'

  'Is the quarrel resolved?'

  'Fortunately – for the moment.' His friend John Mowbray had died three years ago and his son was a haughty young man whose elevation to his father's office and to a place on the Council had rather gone to his head. Humfrey held his wardship but as this was due to expire shortly when he came of age, Humfrey used this quarrel to bring what influence he could to bear on the young Earl in order that he should give way to the more senior Warwick. Grudgingly the matter was settled. 'But,' Humfrey went on, 'I
swear that without a strong hand the turbulent barons would bring this country to civil war. Most of them care nothing for the people, the ordinary people who are the life blood of this country.'

  'And you do?'

  Humfrey turned on him in surprise. 'You know it! Didn't I fight Parliament when they wanted to keep out any man whose property was worth less than forty shillings a year? Haven't I made the city men my friends? And didn't I keep my uncle from trying to exempt himself from the law when he came home with a Cardinal's hat.' He gave a sudden laugh. 'I little thought that when Harry and John and I used to drink at the tavern of that name that one would sit on Uncle Henry's head. And isn't he proud of it? St Augustine says pride lurks even in good deeds to their undoing, and by God he was right!'

  The Abbot could not suppress a smile. 'So are you, my son, but Holy Church gives us our Cardinals, God's choice, and so we must honour them. Yet I believe this country was quieter and better served when the Cardinal was in France and you with a free hand – though perhaps I should not say so.'

  'There is no one to hear in this garden. At least I sent Archbishop Kemp from the Council and dismissed Lord Cromwell who cared for nothing but furthering Beaufort interests, and it angered me that John and my uncle have had them restored, and made Suffolk steward to my nephew's household into the bargain. And since old Westmorland died and his son John rules in his place I cannot count on support there, not from Richard Neville who nurses a slight like a dog with a bone. And after he married Salisbury's daughter and stepped into the earldom when her father died he has become even more obnoxious, looking down that damned nose of his as if he knows better than anyone else what should be done on the border. I made peace with Scotland, not he!'

  He paused for breath and the Abbot sighed. As an acute observer Whethamsteade saw more clearly than most the divisive elements about the young King, and he gave Humfrey credit for trying to keep a sense of unity in the kingdom's affairs. That Humfrey squeezed a higher salary out of depleted coffers could not be denied, but neither could it be denied that he spent his money on gifts to religious foundations, on books for the University at Oxford as well as for his own magnificent library. Perhaps only the Abbot knew what Greenwich meant to him, what a culmination it was of years of planning. Humfrey's obsession with it grew as it developed under his hand; money was poured into lavish furnishings, beautiful hangings, ornate gardens and its new name of Bellacourt was very apt. Perhaps it was all too spectacular, the Duchess's entertaining outshining even the King's court, yet the Abbot was no grudge. Maybe indeed, he thought, he was too partisan, but he loved this restless anxious man walking by his side, he loved the quick mind, the scholarly understanding, the swift brilliant smile. If a man once earned Humfrey's friendship, the Abbot thought, he had it for always, and he was glad and grateful to be so honoured.

  'You are tired, my son,' he said at last, 'can you not rest here a few days?' He sat down invitingly on a stone bench.

  'Aye, perhaps for a week. Do you remember that Christmas when my fellows poached a deer of yours?'

  'I was away if you recall, but my Prior told me of it, and that you broke the fellow's head.'

  'He serves me still, his scar reminding others not to transgress in like manner. A surly man but the best fletcher I've ever had.'

  'Is the Duchess well? I wondered when I did not see her with you.'

  'She visits her mother for a few weeks.' Humfrey did not accept the invitation to sit but walked up and down, pulling at some leaves of rosemary and crushing them in his hand. That his restlessness was more than of the body communicated itself to his friend, for the Abbot sat waiting, his hands folded. He was a man of busy life himself but it seemed to him that the pressures on the Duke had laid too heavy a burden to be borne alone.

  'Are there things you would say to me that you could not say to another?' he asked at last and the simple question seemed to open a floodgate.

  'Aye . . . so much, so much. We have no child after nearly seven years. I want an heir more than I want anything, and it's not for lack of –' he broke off. He was still as deep in love with Eleanor as ever and the news of Jacqueline's remarriage to a prominent Flemish nobleman and her agreement with her cousin Philip of Burgundy, naming him her sole heir, failed to stir him. That episode was closed and it was Eleanor who had filled his heart and mind, satisfying his desires from the day they had become lovers. He still had other mistresses when the mood took him, but it was Eleanor, avid, passionate, who held him.

  'If I had a son,' he went on, 'it would secure my place. Eleanor wishes it as much as I do, in fact –' again he stopped, unwilling to bring something so distasteful into the light, but he could not halt the need to say it, 'She had gone to lengths I do not like in her desire to conceive. There is a woman in the city who makes potions, a priest at Westminster who has a reputation for dabbling in what he should not, and a certain Margery Jourdemayne came recently to Greenwich to advise her – against my wishes. The woman is openly called a witch.'

  'It is dangerous,' Whethamsteade said. 'Have you spoken to the Duchess?'

  'No.' Humfrey did not know why he had not. Except that his desire was as great as hers and if she did a little harmless trifling with potions and such things, what did it matter? Yet he knew that it did matter and it was when she grew more intense that he fled to lie with some simple girl who had no thought but to pleasure him. And as always his body ruled him and as always he wished it did not.

  'My son,' the Abbot's voice penetrated his thoughts, 'it seems to me that you must turn your mind and your lady's from aught but God's Providence. If it is His will that you should have a child, it will come. If not, you must bear your sorrow.'

  'Is He punishing me?' Humfrey turned to face the Abbot. 'Have I offended Him by the way I have lived, the women I have lain with? I cannot do without – even as we rode here my bed at night was not empty.'

  The Abbot's face was grave. 'Have you never thought, my son, that there are men here who have lived chaste all their lives? Can you not do so even in Lent? In Holy Week itself?'

  'It seems not.'

  To Whethamsteade the face looking down at him appeared deep in melancholy and his longing to ease the patent distress grew. 'You are a scholar,' he said at last, 'can you not turn from lust to your books?'

  'I do – God knows I do, and you know it too.' The delight of his growing collection of books was his refuge, Humfrey thought, and he went from the demands of the flesh to lose himself in his reading. His new secretary was a scholar of Verona, Antonio da Baccaria, who was translating Athanasius's writings for him, and he was constantly in touch with learned men in Italy many of whom sent him beautifully bound and decorated manuscripts for his library. Titus Livius was still in his household as his poet and Tom Beckington, now in France as an emissary to the Congress, remained a close friend. When he was able to be at Greenwich with his literary companions he could be at peace, and yet cares of state drove him forth and stubborn Plantagenet pride would not let him yield one jot of his power or one inch of his position.

  He gave a deep sigh, and a faint smile crossed his face. 'I think you had better confess me, Father.'

  The week at St Albans extended itself to ten days and Humfrey spent them enjoying the Abbot's company, hunting in the nearby woods, in long talks with a man whose mind responded to his. On the morning that he planned to leave for London, when an autumn mist lay over the town and the claustral buildings, the trees beyond shrouded in white, he heard the sound of hooves below even before he was dressed. A few moments later Elys came in with Tom Beckington who was haggard with lack of sleep and covered with the dust and dirt of travel.

  'You've come from France?' Humfrey asked abruptly, 'and with ill news?'

  'Yes, my lord. It is your brother, John . . . a sudden seizure . . . the strain of all he undertook, the physician says. All his efforts at Arras failed, there will be no peace, and when he left the Council Chamber he fell in a sudden strange fainting and never recovered.'

/>   'He is dead?'

  'Aye, within a few days. At his own wish he will be buried by now in the Cathedral at Rouen. He was a good and wise man and God will reward him, but I grieve for his loss to England. And for you, my lord, for you have lost a brother.'

  Beckington seemed to be swaying on his feet and Humfrey said mechanically, 'Sit down, Tom. Elys, find him wine and food.' He walked to the window and stood there with his back to them looking out. Grief came from the past, from his youth when the four brothers had been so close, and with it memories of things long forgotten; of John fishing in the mere at Kenilworth, of John and Harry acting the play of St George and the Dragon one Christmas, of raw lads discovering the delights of girls in a summer hayfield. But after a few moments those memories went, leaving him only with the difficulties, the differences of the last years. Slowly he crossed himself. Yet it was of Harry that he was thinking. Harry's death had diminished him, taken something from him that nothing and no one had ever been able to replace. He did not weep for John, not as he had done through that night of wild and bitter anguish after the news of Harry's passing.

  Now all his brothers were gone and he realized that after the King he was now next in line to the throne. Henry was thin and pale and delicate and it had often been doubted whether he would reach man's estate. For an instant Humfrey's head swam. The prospect could not be thrust away and though he wished his nephew no harm, the dazzling possibility of triumphing thus over his enemies was alluring.

  He recollected himself, sent Elys to take the news to the Abbot and half an hour later was on his knees listening to the monks' mournful chanting, the tall yellow requiem candles glowing beneath the checkered arches.

  In three days he was at Windsor where he found his nephew dressed in mourning black and with eyes bloodshot from weeping.