Treason

by Meredith Whitford

  ‘That’s my bed,’ said Richard, ‘and I’ll be glad to have you to share it, I get awfully cold. George has become very grand now he’s eleven, insists on his own bed.’ He perched up on the chest under the window, wrapping his arms round his knees. I joined him. ‘I like our room being on the river side, I like to watch the boats. Look, if you lean right over and peer sideways you can see London Bridge.’

  I took an unenthusiastic look, for how interesting could a bridge be? Then I was transfixed, staring with delight.

  The whole world knows of the glory that is London’s bridge. Nineteen stone arches span the Thames, the greatest thirty feet high. Shops and houses crowd its length yet leave room to hold a joust, so broad is it. St Thomas’s chapel clings to one of the piers, only just above the water. I shouted aloud when I saw the drawbridge being raised to let a ship through into the Pool of London, and I nearly fell off the chest trying to watch the barges and count the ships.

  Steadying me, Richard said, ‘Martin, I’m very sorry about your mother, I liked her so much. And your father. Everything’s horrible now.’

  ‘Yes.’ Shying away from the subject I asked him about Ludlow. ‘For we had your mother’s letter saying you were going there, then no news till my father wrote from Ireland. What happened?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we went there, summer of the year before last – often it seems no time ago, often years and years. I liked it, it’s beautiful. It was a military camp when we got there, for Father mustered his army there, the soldiers’ camp filled all the meadows around the castle. We used to watch the men drill and often I would go to watch the fletcher making arrows, and the armourer... And there were Edward and Edmund... It was a wonderful summer.’

  As he turned to me I saw tears shining in his slate-blue eyes. ‘I loved Edmund. He was – was kind. Merry. Rather quiet, but fun. The day we arrived he said, “Oh, hooray, another dark one, you’re like Father and me.”’ He ran his hand through his dark reddish-brown hair. ‘It was true, Edmund and I take – took after Father. My sister Anne does too, I think, but I can’t remember her, she got married before I was born and I’ve only seen her twice.’

  I had no interest in the Duchess of Exeter. ‘Remember how we used to talk about Edward? Richard, he was so kind to me and he’s as wonderful as we used to imagine.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’ Richard smiled, his face glowing with hero-worship. ‘That first day he lifted me up onto his shoulders, and he said, ‘How odd to have a brother one has never met.’ He and Edmund are – were both soldiers, of course, they were preparing to lead troops for Father, so they were busy, but most afternoons they gave time to me and George and Margaret. They took us riding and fishing, and taught us to shoot, to arm a knight for battle, oh, all sorts of things. And chess and tables and tennis.’ I felt a pang of envy, for this was what I had dreamed of when I heard he was going to Ludlow. ‘And most days if it was fine we’d go down by the river and Edmund and Edward told us stories or read to us from books, Chaucer and Xenophon and Caesar, or they’d tell us about battles, real ones, I mean – Henry the Fifth, and the great Edwards. My ancestors. I suppose yours all fought in those battles too. And there was this one old fellow there, Old Pete they called him, and he had fought at Agincourt!’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Oh yes. And he would talk to us about it. Actually, he said it rained most of the time and what he best remembered is mud. He said it’s very bad terrain for battle, around the River Somme. But he talked of the battle, and when he told us of the speech the King made his voice would change and suddenly we were listening to Henry the Fifth himself! It was wonderful.’ His voice flattened. ‘But then it all changed, of course. My uncle Salisbury was bringing his troops to my father, and the Queen sent a wing of her army to intercept him and there was a battle at Blore Heath. My uncle won, and he came on safe to Ludlow. But that made it real to me, if you understand? Seeing the wagons full of dead and injured men, hearing them... seeing my mother and Margaret help the surgeons... It’s as if it had been a game before that, and then suddenly it was real. Father and Edward and Edmund were going to have to fight and they might be killed or might come home like those wounded men in the wagons.’

  As his voice died away a bell sounded distantly. On its echo a manservant bustled in with hot water and towels. ‘Supper time,’ said Richard, and we were both glad of the interruption. Feelings are hard to talk about when you’re eight.

  The Earl of Warwick had arrived while we were upstairs. Warwick is very important to my story, so it is a pity I cannot now remember my first, unbiased impression of him. I suppose he dazzled me as he did most people, for although he lacked the imperious Neville height he was a stocky, well-made man, and the blue Neville eyes gleamed in a handsome face. He wore black for his father and brother, but it was elaborate, perfectly tailored black, with a quiet embroidery of pearls here and there, and jewelled spurs to his boots. He was England’s richest man, a famous sea captain, head now of the great Neville clan; authority and self-confidence shone from him. He also had the charm of all that family. Later I knew him for a man of great pride, arrogance if you like; one who could never be in the wrong. But that first time, I suppose, I took him at his own evaluation.

  The Duchess must have told him about me, for he embraced me and spoke very kindly, with great tact, about my parents. He had known my mother well, he said, speaking of her as Cousin Dorothy. ‘And of course I met your father at Ludlow; a fine man from a fine family. The fact that our fathers died together for our cause makes us more than kinsmen, Martin.’ He smiled at me, and I decided I admired him almost as much as I did Edward and my father.

  ~~~

  Worn out from travel, I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. Nightmares woke me, however; in the dead of night I jerked from horror to find Richard shaking my shoulder.

  ‘Martin, ssh, you’re dreaming, ssh, wake up now, it’s all right, you’re safe.’

  ‘Sorry. Was I talking?’

  ‘Rather. Whimpering and kicking. Wake up and the dreams will go away.’

  I was all twisted up in the bedclothes, my pillow down the side of the bed. Richard helped straighten me out, and moved the hot brick to warm my feet. ‘It’s cold – cuddle up. That’s right.’ We were young enough to hold each other without embarrassment. I lay with my head on his bony shoulder, realising I had been crying in my sleep. ‘What were you dreaming?’ he asked.

  ‘About the Queen’s men – about my mother.’

  ‘That was horrible,’ he said. ‘Horrible. And they say it’s happened all over England, the Queen is letting her army do what it likes. Perhaps she is telling them to do it. They did it at Ludlow too.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’

  ‘Yes, now I do. I told you about my uncle Salisbury – well, just after he arrived so did Cousin Warwick, from Calais.’

  ‘I know, my father told us – with the Calais garrison under Sir – Sir – ’

  ‘– Andrew Trollope. We thought they were fine men. Well, the Queen’s army moved gradually down on Ludlow and in October, not long after my birthday in fact, they camped about a mile away and we knew it would be battle in the morning. Father’s men had built defensive earth-works across the valley, all that sort of thing.

  ‘We children knew nothing till they woke us in the small hours. Trollope and the Calais men had deserted to the Queen. It meant her force outnumbered ours, and Trollope knew all our plans and defences. So our men had to flee. Martin?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I thought it seemed – well, seemed rather like – like running away. I was ashamed at first. But then Edward explained that it was a – a strategic withdrawal and that in a situation like that you can’t afford false pride. And the Queen would have killed them if they hadn’t died in battle, and she might have killed us. So they went, in the night.’

  ‘Mmm, my father told me. What happened to you? We heard you had been taken prisoner?’

  ‘Sort of. In t
he dawn my mother took us down to the castle courtyard. We waited on the steps of the keep. We heard the enemy army coming on. They moved on us slowly; suspicious, I suppose, at meeting no resistance. We saw flames from the town. Heard noises. A group of men rode into the courtyard, and Margaret told us the leader was the Duke of Somerset. Mother went forward. She had told us to stay back, but George went after her and took her arm – and I think that was brave of him, not letting Mother face the enemy alone.’

  I thought so too, and I felt a vicarious pride in George. ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Well, Mother talked to Somerset, who’s her cousin, you know? And then we waited there. And Martin, the Lancastrians sacked the castle and Ludlow town, stripped them bare. They stole everything from food and wine to our clothes and books. What they couldn’t carry away they smashed or... They broke Mother’s Venetian looking-glass and – and I saw a man shitting in the corner, and he was wiping his arse on pages from Edward’s copy of Historia Regum Brittaniae. That book cost over a hundred pounds. But even if it hadn’t been so costly, well, I mean: a book!

  ‘And... we had a little guard with us, just three or four men, all pensioners. They’d been ordered not to fight but when they saw what was happening, they did... They were all cut down, all killed. One of them was Old Pete, the Agincourt veteran. He had fought for Henry the Fifth, then under Henry’s son he was cut down in an English village by an English army. I saw him lying there, and he had his bow in his hand, and it might have been the one he used at Agincourt.’ He was crying now; we both were. I hugged him closer, patting him awkwardly. After a moment he sniffled, and went on, ‘Well, then the Queen came.’

  ‘What’s she like?’ I had always pictured something along the lines of Medusa.

  ‘Quite pretty. Plump. Very dark, very French-seeming.’ He giggled suddenly. ‘She had the Prince of Wales with her, perched up on her saddlebow. Martin, he’s near our age but he was cuddling up to her like a baby and he was wearing white velvet! With silver embroidery. The Queen called him “mon petit Edouard, mon ange”.’ His voice flattened again. ‘She cursed Mother and slapped her face.

  ‘Well, soon after that they took us to the royal camp at Leominster – and we met the King.’

  ‘What’s he like? I’ve seen pictures of Henry Five.’

  ‘So have I. He’s not like that. He looks old. Tall, very thin, a big nose. Rather moth-eaten. When he came in I thought he was the Queen’s confessor and I thought he should tidy himself up, cut his hair and put on a clean robe. But it was the King. He was kind to us, though, and he called Mother “Cecily, dearest cousin”, and took a great interest in us. Then he asked where Father was, and said his “dear Cousin of York” had no reason to fear him, he trusted Father’s loyalty... Then he went over to his prie-dieu and began to pray and you could tell he had forgotten all about us.

  ‘Then later we were taken to Coventry, the Queen had called a parliament there. They sent Mother and us to her sister the Duchess of Buckingham, whose husband is – was – on the Queen’s side. He died in battle at Northampton. Mother and my aunt loathe each other, they squabbled all the time. Then a letter came from the Archbishop of Canterbury, he is our cousin and Edward had written to him asking him to care for us. George and I were sent to him. He was kind, but it was very dull.’

  Suddenly we heard the rattle of curtain-rings and George said furiously, ‘Will you two shut up! A fellow can’t get a wink of sleep!’ (I might say he’d been snoring all this time.) The rings clattered again, and we heard him tossing, then a moment later his snores were shaking the rafters again.

  ‘Better be quiet,’ Richard whispered, ‘he’s like a baited bear if he’s woken.

  ‘Well, that’s about all there is to tell you. In July Edward and Warwick and my uncle landed, and came to London, and won the battle at Northampton. Then Father and Edmund arrived from Ireland – and your father, of course – and although I didn’t understand much of it, my father claimed the crown... While we were waiting for Father, George and I were put to lodge at Sir John Falstolf’s house over in Southwark. Mother was at Fotheringhay once Edward got her and Margaret released. And, Martin, while we were there Edward came every single day to see us! He never, ever forgot. He was busy with government and raising an army, but he never once forgot us.’

  I heard his lashes brushing the pillow. ‘Martin, I hope I’m not a coward but I’m afraid of what might happen. The Queen is besieging London, Edward is over in the west with the army – and if he – if anything happens to him, George and I are the only ones left, the only males of our family. The Queen would try to kill us, I think.’

  ‘Surely not. Not even Lancaster could. You’re just boys.’

  ‘Take us prisoner, then. A lifetime in the Tower. Or Pontefract Castle, where the King’s grandfather killed Richard the Second. I could not bear that.’

  ‘Edward won’t fail, you’ll see. And there’s Lord Warwick.’

  ‘Yes. But I can’t help being frightened. I’m glad you are here because I can tell you things like that. We’re still friends, aren’t we, like we used to be?’

  ‘Yes. Best friends. Forever.’

  ‘Good. Martin?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wasn’t supposed to know, but I heard Cousin Warwick telling Mother... The Queen took my father’s head, and Edmund’s and my uncle Salisbury’s, and stuck them up over the Mickel Gate at York, as you do with traitors. She said Father had been a traitor, and he wasn’t, he wasn’t!’ He rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. I could feel his body shaking with sobs. I managed to get hold of his hand, and after a moment he laced his fingers into mine. There was nothing I could say. Soon he turned towards me again and went on, ‘And the Queen made her men put a straw crown on Father’s head, in mockery, because she said he had wanted the Crown of England and a straw one was all he deserved... And I keep wondering if the people of York have taken the heads down now the Queen’s left, or whether they are still there. For I’ve seen traitors’ head up like that here in London, and I loved my father and Edmund, and Uncle Salisbury was kind to me ... What if their heads are still there? Although Father’s dukedom was York, the city of York is Lancastrian.’

  Of course I hadn’t a clue, but I said in a voice ringing with authority that naturally the citizens of York would have acted properly, of course there had been a decent burial.

  ‘I hope so. That didn’t happen to your father or the other men who died.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry, Richard, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  ‘And so am I, for your mother and father and everything that happened.’

  We lay open-eyed for a while, silent for George’s sake, then, sure we wouldn’t sleep, we began to recite the opening to the Canterbury Tales, line after line in turn. No disrespect to Master Chaucer, but after a dozen lines we were asleep.

  ~~~

  While I can recall every detail and word of that first day at Baynard’s Castle, little of the next few days remains. I know I grieved sharply for my parents, and I suppose that like Richard I was afraid of what might happen, but I was content to be with people I knew, I was secure in love. Why should I remember more?

  What I do recall, vividly, is the news of Mortimer’s Cross.

  We boys were fooling about in the courtyard when there was a cry in the street outside and the porter sprang to open the gates. Pushing hesitantly forward we watched a troop ride in on lathered horses. The men wore the badge of York. Sliding wearily from the saddle the leader saw us, and grinned. ‘Good news. There has been a battle – a great victory! Now, I have letters for Her Grace the Duchess – ’

  She had heard already, she was there on the steps. ‘My son is safe?’

  ‘Safe and well, Madam, and victorious.’

  Her shoulders slumped with relief, and the sudden flowering of colour in her cheeks told how fearful she had been. Smiling, she said, ‘Then come you in and tell us.’

  Edward had been leading his army towar
ds London, the man said, when he had word that the Earls of Pembroke and Wiltshire were closing up behind him with a mighty force. Edward had therefore swung about and formed up his men in battle array near Mortimer’s Cross, defending the east-west road crossing the River Lugg.

  ‘It was bad weather,’ the man said, ‘icy cold, snowing – and, Madam, my lady, God sent a miraculous sign! Three suns shining in the sky! Some of the men were afraid, they thought it an ill omen, but Edward, I mean His Grace, got up in front of us and shouted that it was a sign of heaven’s favour – for the Sun in Splendour is his badge and he’s one of three sons. That put us in new heart, I can tell you, and surely he was right, for we won the battle. His Grace said later he’d heard of such signs before and there’s a name for it – ’

  ‘Parhelion,’ the Duchess murmured. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of it. A Greek word, I believe. But yes, it was a sign of God’s favour.’

  ‘Indeed it was. The Lancastrian leaders escaped, but some four thousand of the enemy were killed. Few on our side, and your son and his leaders are unharmed.’

  ‘Deo gratias. And now?’

  ‘His Grace is marching for London.’

  ‘Good. And the Lancastrians?’

  Some of the messenger’s exuberance ebbed. ‘Madam, the Queen leads her army down on London.’

  ‘Then I,’ said Warwick, who’d been listening with his chin on his hand, ‘shall deal with her.’

  ~~~

  On the twelfth day of February, Warwick mustered his army to march against the royal force. I recall that day, the flurry of goodbyes, Lady Warwick weeping when she thought no one was watching, and Warwick’s brother John, Lord Montagu, coolly seeing to the last arrangements while Warwick strode about in half-armour shouting instructions. The Duke of Norfolk was waiting at the head of a troop in his silver lion badges, and George pointed out the Duke of Suffolk, who was married to their sister Elizabeth, and the Earl of Arundel and Viscount Bouchier. With nearly ten thousand men under leaders like these, Lancaster was done for.