This Son of York

by Anne Easter Smith

  The nursemaid came to find her charge and carry him off to bed, but Anne waved her away. “We will keep him with us, tonight, Matty. He will be quite safe.”

  Safe. Richard liked the sound of the word at this moment. With George dead and his rebel adherents without a leader, perhaps England would be free from civil strife, and Edward could focus on protecting his kingdom from foreign interference. Moreover, Elizabeth could focus on mothering her growing brood instead of plotting to destroy George. The more Richard thought of Elizabeth’s words, the more suspicious he became that she had somehow orchestrated George’s downfall. It was a feeling, nothing more, and he dismissed it. Elizabeth was not worth his thoughts at this tender moment with the people he loved. How grateful he was for his gentle wife, his happy home, and his precious son.

  He nuzzled Ned’s dark curls and looked across at Anne, watching him with such devotion, and he finally said the words he had been unable to say truthfully all these years. “I love you, Anne. I love you with all of my heart.”

  Elizabeth Woodville gave birth to another son on St. George’s Day and ironically named him for that dragon-slaying patron saint of England.

  Not three months later, and not satisfied that George’s death had made her husband’s and sons’ crown safer, she turned her malicious thoughts to the last of the York sons, convinced that Richard of Gloucester would seek power for himself and take arms against the king. It was hard not to blame her suspicions after George’s clear designs on Edward’s throne, but to turn on Richard was purely vindictive. She lived in perpetual fear of losing her own status as queen as well as her children’s right to the crown.

  Richard had sensed he was in danger as early as the summer of George’s arrest and imprisonment. In an unusual move when war was not imminent, he had called upon all his tenants in the bishopric of Durham to swear an oath that they would do him service in time of need. He was expecting the queen to turn on him, and he would be ready. Disturbed by George’s grisly death and convinced Elizabeth’s revenge was unassuaged, he could be forgiven for overreacting.

  But for now, Richard returned to his duties. He tried to forget the execution and forgive Edward for allowing it. That George deserved his fate there was no doubt in Richard’s mind, but he still believed his brother should have been beheaded in the proper manner of a noble, and only he could have ensured that end. How he loathed not having had control over the situation, as he would have done as Lord of the North. Over and over again, he chastised himself for not fighting harder for a better death for George. Yet another burden to bear, he thought grimly.

  It was perhaps more guilt after the botched execution that gave him the impetus to endow a new chantry college at Middleham, which housed several priests and choristers who prayed and sang masses daily and exclusively for the saving of the souls of not only himself and Anne, but for his family, both living and dead. These acts of piety somewhat salved his soul and made him less afraid to confront his Maker or his confessor. Moreover, he was often seen slipping into a side chapel during a mass. On his knees, his eyes firmly fixed on the crucified Jesus, he hoped to ease George’s troubled soul to heaven. His own guilty soul, he had no doubt, was destined for hell.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Summer 1482–Spring 1483

  The ramparts of the high bastion that was Berwick Castle were bristling with soldiers, the July sun glinting off helmets, shields and weapons and the calm sea beyond. The pale, crenellated curtain wall that encompassed the town swooped down the steep hill and into the estuary like a giant staircase, ending with a square tower jutting into the water, making the castle all but impenetrable. It was easy to see how besieging the fortress on its hill from land or sea had failed many times in its three centuries.

  “Whoreson thistle-arses,” Richard muttered under his breath to which insult Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland and Richard’s lieutenant, grunted an assent. His other lieutenant, Lord Stanley, actually guffawed. “If it is the last thing I do, I will take back Berwick for my brother,” Richard vowed. “After Queen Margaret lost it to the Scots twenty years ago, ’tis a matter of pride.”

  The three men sat their coursers not far from the drawbridge but out of range of any projectile that might be hurled from the town gatehouse. Behind them, the twenty-thousand-strong English army awaited commands, among them Queen Elizabeth’s oldest son, the marquis of Dorset, and Richard’s friends, Rob Percy and Francis Lovell.

  Set a little apart from the trio in front, a stocky man with startlingly red hair and dark red beard watched Richard anxiously. Alexander Stewart, duke of Albany, was counting on the young Gloucester to help him unseat his brother, the weak King James III, and take the throne of Scotland for himself. Berwick was the first test along the path, and he was eager to know if King Edward’s trust in his younger brother was well placed. Little did Albany know that Richard of Gloucester had thought it a harebrained scheme of Edward’s from the start.

  “Remember George?” Richard had warned Edward at Fotheringhay a month earlier. Albany had signed a pact with Edward that Scotland would support England against any threat from France, if Edward put Albany on the throne of Scotland. “Another ambitious, perfidious brother, if you ask me. If you are worried about James being manipulated by Louis of France, why not simply show him you are serious with a proper campaign over the border. I have the troops, let me do the job.”

  “You may lord it over the north, Richard, but you may not lord it over your king,” Edward had snapped back, surprising Richard with his vehemence. “James broke his truce in ’81 and his raids into Northumbria grow more daring and troublesome. Putting Albany on James’s throne will put paid to Louis web-spinning, and I can concentrate on my unhappy subjects.” He gave a long sigh. “I weary of governing them. We have had eleven years of peace in this kingdom. Can they not be satisfied with that?”

  And although Richard would have dearly loved to give his brother some reasons why his starving people were unhappy, he had acquiesced in taking Albany with him into the borderlands. England and Scotland were many centuries away from uniting; even the Romans had failed to join the two peoples and had had to construct an impressive wall to achieve a semblance of peace.

  Richard refocused on the town in front of him, not relishing the task of attacking the innocent resident English citizens in order to storm the castle on the hill. Northumberland raised an eyebrow and addressed his commander-in-chief. “What now, my lord duke?”

  Before Richard could answer, the town gates swung open to allow a contingent of town elders to emerge. He frowned. He had anticipated the Scottish defenders would man the town walls and at least put up a fight. It seemed it was not to be, for in a very few moments the mayor of Berwick fell on his knees in front of Richard and explained the town was surrendering. “Mayor Holtham, if it please you, m’lord,” he introduced himself, in his broad northern accent. “It is gradely to see you.” He was in awe at the mass of fully armed men swarming the meadows before the town. “It seems all the soldiers living amoong us have been summoned to defend the castle. Those boggin’ oat-eaters had nae stomach for a fight once they saw your noomber. Canna say I blame ’em,” he said, showing gaps in his gums as he grinned.

  But Richard was all business. “What food supply is there, Mayor? I can pay a fair price.”

  Holtham lifted his shoulders and spread his hands. “Nowt, my lord. Our people are starving.”

  Richard thanked the man and dismissed him. He made a quick decision. “We camp here for the night, and move on to the border at first light,” he cried to his captains. He turned to Stanley. “You, my lord, will remain here and lay siege to the castle. Starve them out if you must, but I have no doubt it will fall if we persist. Percy and I will defeat the Scots and return to help you do it.”

  Thomas Stanley bowed. Not yet entirely certain of Richard, Stanley had grudgingly agreed to accept him as his commander. But now he acknowledged that the young duke had been entrusted with the Scottish campaign n
ot merely because he was the king’s brother but because he had a strategic military brain. Surprisingly, Richard was a leader of men, Stanley observed, despite a lack of his older brother’s stature and charisma. Stanley’s wife, the formidable Margaret Beaufort, who despised the York brothers, had warned him not to trust either of them, but he had so far not seen anything to distrust in Richard.

  A scout cantered through the town streets to where Richard and his commanders were lodging for the night and gave Richard the information he needed. “The Scottish army is moving south and is at Haddington, my lord duke. If they keep moving, I warrant it is three days’ march to catch them—if the weather holds.”

  The English troops were primed for action, and with relative ease, they swept through several towns and villages in southern Scotland leaving them still burning. Richard ordered the fields stripped of all their harvest, and the English army left devastation in its wake. All this was a provocation for the Scots, but Richard was puzzled when he encountered no resistance.

  In the middle of the second day, a dusty horseman galloped full speed down a heather-laden hill to Richard. “I come from Lauder, my lord, a village not ten miles from here,” the man in Lovell livery said, “where I witnessed an extraordinary scene: The Scots had arrested their king and proceeded to hang his…um…his favorites from Lauder bridge right in front of him.” It was these foppish young men’s influence on infatuated James that had incensed the other nobles.

  Surprise greeted this news, and Francis asked, “What did they do to James?”

  “He is their prisoner and is taken to Edinburgh, and the army has turned back.”

  “Now what?” Northumberland asked. “We have them on the run.”

  Richard was quiet for a moment. He had hoped to engage the Scots in the lowlands; he knew the closer to Edinburgh they went, the rising topography would be a less desirable battleground.

  “Let us double our efforts to reach the lily-livered rabble,” he declared. “Let us march on.”

  Their small tastes of victory soon paled as they passed by the unfortunate favorites, swinging from the bridge. Richard ordered them cut down and buried. Confounded again to meet no resistance at all, he rode unopposed into the capital city of Edinburgh two days later. The Scottish army had not only retreated to Haddington following their seizure of James, but Richard was greeted by a message from the enemy commanders begging for a truce.

  They declared that ‘the war was over’ in their missive, Richard wrote to Edward later. What war? I have had more difficulty snaring a lame rabbit than I had taking Edinburgh!

  With James in his nobles’ power, it seemed that Albany’s way to the throne was assured, but after a week or so it became crystal clear to Richard that the Scots had no wish for Albany to rule them either. Instead, the unhappy man was granted a pardon for his treasonable behavior if he swore allegiance to his brother and would never vie for James’s throne again. Before he left Edinburgh, Richard made Albany sign an oath that England was released from the contract to support him.

  Just in case! Richard continued to his brother after describing the scene. The numbskull even accused me of betrayal. These uncivilized people vacillate in their allegiances like waving wheat. I shall march back to Berwick and with God’s help—and some well-aimed cannons—I shall take the castle back.

  He could not take all the credit, however, as Lord Stanley’s men had worn down the defending Berwick garrison so that they threw down their arms and surrendered as soon as Richard’s army reappeared. Nevertheless, once back in London, and at Edward’s behest, Richard rode through the streets to receive the accolades of the people—and the gratitude of his king.

  It was the first time he had been hailed a hero in his own right by his fellow countrymen, and he was proud to hear his name shouted from the rooftops. What enhanced Richard’s honor was that he had resisted a victor’s usual temptation to destroy the city of Edinburgh. Instead he had reconciled peaceably with James’s council and withdrawn his army without burning a house or killing a citizen.

  Other than the brief visit following the Scottish campaign, Richard was not seen at Edward’s court much in the years after George’s death—years in which, as Lord of the North, he heard appeals, dispensed justice wisely, mended bitter rivalries between Nevilles and Percies, kept the peace, and maintained border fortifications, earning the deep respect of northerners. His only domestic disappointment was Anne’s continued inability to bear another child.

  “It is God’s will,” he had told his weeping wife, when yet another miscarriage laid her low. “We have Ned, who is a good boy and strong, and John is turning into a fine young squire. My dearest Anne, we have an heir and should be grateful. Let us count our blessings.”

  Richard thought of that scene now as he watched his beloved heir from a viewpoint above the tiltyard and again gave thanks for the boy.

  “Look, Father! Look at me!” Ned cried with delight as he trotted on the back of a cream-colored Welsh cob. The pony was a perfect size for the nine-year-old Edward, who had been taught to ride almost before he could walk. The boy adored horses, and just as his father before him had loved the kennels as a child, Ned spent hours in the stables, giving the horses treats and helping the grooms curry the beasts and muck out their stalls.

  Ned wielded a long baton and when it was his turn, he kicked his horse’s flanks, lowered his weapon and galloped towards the target, a small wooden shield attached to a swivel arm on a post. Ned timed his tilt perfectly, and the quintain swung away allowing the rider to pass. The other boys whooped and their instructor nodded his satisfaction, but it was his father’s approval Ned sought, and he trotted up anxiously to where Richard was watching proudly from a platform above the yard. “Did you see, Father? I hit it well, did I not?” Ned crowed, waving his stick.

  “Aye, you did, my son,” Richard said, truthfully, “but you must learn not to boast of it. Wait for a compliment, because there is always more you can learn. Humility is a better teacher than pride.” He bent down and tousled Ned’s light brown hair, loving the way his son’s expressions mirrored Anne’s. Disappointment shadowed the boy’s face though, stirring Richard’s heart. “You are the best of the boys, Ned,” he said quietly. “John has taught you well.” Ned rewarded Richard with a smile that never failed to wilt his father’s determination to be stern. “Now cheer your comrades on.”

  Ned trotted off and was soon applauding the efforts of others. Richard knew he ought to be looking for the right nobleman to mentor his son, but Anne could not bear to part with her only child yet, and Richard could not bring himself to dishearten her. The couple had sadly given up hope for more children, simply treasuring the one they had. Having no siblings to compete with for attention, Ned was growing up fearless and carefree, and, unlike Richard’s lot as a boy, Ned’s childhood had been free of upheaval and violence.

  But for how much longer?

  Richard had returned from London in February concerned for his brother’s health, the growing worry of an invasion from France after the Burgundians signed a treaty with their old enemies, and the continued depravity of Edward’s court. He prayed daily for his brother’s immortal—or he should say immoral—soul, and he shuddered now remembering the unfortunate meeting he had had recently with Edward’s latest mistress, Jane Shore.

  He referred to her as “the Shore whore,” as he had no doubt she must also be warming Will Hastings’ bed, judging from the way Will looked at her. Indeed, their only meeting had been at the Tower where he had caught Jane coming out of the room where the lord chamberlain was being held as a temporary punishment. Edward had blamed Will for a diplomatic mistake he himself had made that had led to the treaty of Arras. The king’s subsequent depression had resulted in unfairly slapping Will with a month’s prison term. It was Richard who had seen the injustice of it and persuaded Edward to lighten the sentence.

  Now back in the north, Richard dwelled on other problems to do with the well-being of England. No further
rebellions or in-fighting between noble families had surfaced recently, and now, two weeks after Easter, he felt his territory was secure enough for Edward. As was his wont during these reflections, George’s ghostly face would invade his thoughts, giving rise to a guilty relief that he would no longer have his brother scheming behind his back. Good riddance, he found himself echoing Elizabeth’s words, and forced George back into the grave.

  Richard returned his attention to the quintain exercise. Next to tilt was John, who had taken to the martial arts like a cat to cream, and was tasked already with mentoring some of the younger boys. Ned cheered the loudest for his stepbrother, and John winked at him before lowering his lance and charging. The two boys were a complete contrast in physique, though both showed an aptitude for athletics. Ned had inherited his and Anne’s slighter build, but John was everything Richard had wished himself to have been at thirteen years old: strong, outgoing, and confident, although Richard wished John would apply himself more to his studies.

  “A groat for your thoughts, Richard,” Anne Beauchamp’s warm voice interrupted his musings, and he turned to his mother-in-law with a smile. She had aged greatly. Life had not dealt kindly with her since her husband’s treachery, and her time in sanctuary had caused her to become a shadow of herself. The Yorkshire air had restored some of her health, and, remembering her many kindnesses to him, Richard had always treated Warwick’s wife with love and respect. He knew the rumors had made him seem a grasping son-in-law, and indeed he had benefited greatly from her fortune, but he hoped that he had given her a warm welcome in his—and her erstwhile—home.

  “I was thinking how fortunate I am with my family, ’twas all,” Richard told her. “Your grandson shows good progress at the quintain, my lady.”