The White Princess

by Philippa Gregory

  “Mother, I would swear on my life that Richard didn’t hurt them,” I say earnestly. “I know that Richard would have told me if he had done so. You know it. You were convinced on the night when he came to you to ask if it was you who had stolen them both away, weren’t you? He didn’t know where they were, or what had become of them. He thought you might have had them. I would swear that he never knew. Actually, it tormented him that he didn’t know. At the very end, he didn’t know who to name as his heir. He was desperate to be sure.”

  My mother’s gaze is hard. “Oh, I believe that Richard didn’t kill the boys. Of course I know that. I would never have released you and your sisters into his care if I had thought he could bring himself to harm his own brother’s children. But for sure, he kidnapped our Prince Edward on the road to London. He killed my brother Anthony who tried to defend him. He took Edward into the Tower and did all he could to take my younger boy Richard too. It wasn’t him who killed them in secret, but he put them where a killer could find them. He defied your father’s will and he took your brother’s throne. He might not have killed them; but they should both have been left safe in my keeping. Richard of Gloucester took Edward from me, and he would have taken my son Richard too. He took the throne, and he killed my brother Anthony and my son Richard Grey. He was a usurper and a murderer, and I will never forgive him for those crimes. I don’t need to lay others at Richard’s door, he will go to hell for these, and I will never forgive him for these.”

  Miserably, I shake my head that my mother should say this of the man I love. I can’t defend him, not to her, who lost her two boys and still does not know what has become of them. “I know,” I whisper. “I know. I’m not denying that he had to act in terrible times, he did terrible things. He confessed them to his priest and he prayed for forgiveness for them. You have no idea how tortured he was by the things he had to do. But I’m certain that he didn’t order the death of my brothers.”

  “Then Henry will find nothing in his search of the Tower,” she observes. “If Richard did not kill them, there will be no bodies for Henry to bring out. Perhaps they are both alive, hidden somewhere in the Tower or in the houses nearby.”

  “And what would Henry do then? If he found them alive?” I am breathless at this speculation. “What would he do if someone came forward and said they had them hidden, safely hidden away, our boys, for all this long time?”

  My mother’s smile is as sad and as slow as a falling tear. “Why, he’d have to kill them,” she says simply. “If he were to find my sons alive now, he would kill them at once, and blame it on Richard. If he found my sons alive, he would have to kill them, to take the throne, just as your father killed old King Henry to take the throne. Of course he would. We all know that.”

  “And would he do it, do you think? Could he do such a terrible thing?”

  She shrugs. “I think he would make himself do it. He would have no choice. Otherwise, he would have risked his life and his army for nothing. His mother would have spent her life plotting and even marrying for nothing. Yes, if Henry ever finds your brother Edward alive he would kill him in that moment. If he finds your brother Richard he would have to put him to death. It would be nothing more to him than continuing the work he did at Bosworth. He’d find some way of settling his conscience. He’s a young man who has lived under the shadow of the sword from the moment when he fled England as a boy of fourteen to the day when he rode home to fight for his claim. Nobody knows better than he that any claimant to the throne has to be killed at once. A king cannot let a pretender live. No king can allow a pretender to live.”

  Henry’s court goes with him to the Tower, and more and more men flock to the Tudor standard now that it is triumphant. We hear, through gossip from the city streets, of the round of rewards that comes from the Tudor throne as Henry hands out the spoils of Bosworth in the days before his coronation. His mother has all her lands and wealth returned to her; she enters a greatness that she always claimed but never enjoyed before now. Her husband, Thomas, Lord Stanley, is made Earl of Derby and High Constable of England, the greatest position in the realm, as reward for his great courage in looking both ways at once, the two-faced traitor that he is. I know, for I heard him swear the oath, that he promised his loyalty, his absolute fealty, to my Richard; I saw him go down on his knees and promise his love, even offering his son as a pledge of his loyalty. He swore that his brother, his whole family, were Richard’s true men.

  But that morning at Bosworth Field he and Sir William sat on their horses with their mighty armies behind him, and waited to see which way the battle would go. When they saw Richard charge into the heart of the fighting, on his own, aimed like a spear at Henry himself, the Stanleys, Lord William and Sir Thomas, acting as one, swept down on him from behind, with swords raised. They rescued Henry in that moment, and cut Richard down to the ground when he was just moments away from putting his sword through Henry Tudor’s heart.

  Sir William Stanley picked up my Richard’s helmet from the mud, tore off the battle coronet, and handed the gold circlet to Henry: the most vile piece of work of a villainous day. Now, in puppyish gratitude, Henry makes Sir William his chamberlain, kisses him on both cheeks, declares that they are the new royal family. He surrounds himself with Stanleys, he cannot thank them enough. He has found his throne and his family in one triumph. He is inseparable from his mother, Margaret, and always, half a step behind her, is her devoted husband, Lord Thomas Stanley, and half a step behind him is his brother Sir William. Henry lolls in the lap of these newfound kinsmen who have put their boy on the throne and knows he is safe at last.

  His uncle Jasper, who shared his exile and kept faith with the Tudor cause since Henry’s birth, is there too, rewarded for a lifetime of loyalty with his share of the spoils. He gets his title back, and his lands returned; he will have his pick of the posts of government. And he gets even more than this. Henry writes to my aunt Katherine, the widow of the traitorous Duke of Buckingham, and tells her to prepare for remarriage. Jasper is to have her and the Buckingham fortune. It seems that all the Rivers women are part of the spoils of war. She brings the letter in her hand when she comes to see my mother as we are sitting in the second-best rooms at Westminster Palace.

  “Is he mad?” she asks my mother. “Was it not enough that I was married to a boy, to the young duke who hated me, but I now have to marry another enemy of our family?”

  “D’you get a fee?” my mother asks dryly, since she has her own letter to show her sister. “For see, here is our news. I am to be paid a pension. Cecily is to be married to Sir John Welles, and Elizabeth is to be betrothed to the king.”

  “Well, thank God for that at least!” my aunt Katherine exclaims. “You must have been anxious.”

  My mother nods. “Oh, he would have reneged on his vow if he could have done. He was looking for another bride, he was trying to get out of it.”

  I look up from my sewing at this, but my mother and her sister are intent on their letters, their heads together.

  “When will it be? The wedding?”

  “After the coronation.” My mother points to the paragraph. “Of course, he won’t want anyone to say that they are joint king and queen. He’ll want to be seen to take the throne on his own merits. He won’t want anyone saying she takes the queen’s crown on her own account. He can’t have anyone saying that he’s got the crown through her.”

  “But we’ll all go to his coronation?” my aunt Katherine asks. “They’ve left it very late but—”

  “Not invited,” my mother says shortly.

  “It’s an insult! He must have Elizabeth there!”

  My mother shrugs her shoulders. “What if they cheered for her? What if they called for us?” she says quietly. “You know how people would cheer for her, if they saw her. You know how Londoners love the House of York. What if the people saw us and called for my nephew Edward of Warwick? What if they booed the House of Tudor and called for the House of York? At his coronation? H
e’s not going to risk it.”

  “There’ll be York kinsmen there,” Katherine points out. “Your sister-in-law Elizabeth has turned her coat, as her husband the Duke of Suffolk has changed sides again. Her son, John de la Pole, that King Richard named as his heir, has begged Henry’s pardon and so they will be there.”

  My mother nods. “So they should be,” she says. “And I am sure they will serve him loyally.”

  My aunt Katherine gives a short snort of laughter and my mother cannot stop her smile.

  I go to find Cecily. “You’re to be married,” I say abruptly. “I heard Mother and Aunt Katherine talking.”

  She turns pale. “Who to?”

  I understand at once that she is afraid that she is to be humiliated again by a marriage to some lowly supporter of the Tudor invasion. “You’re all right,” I say. “Lady Margaret is standing your friend. She’s marrying you to her half brother, Sir John Welles.”

  She gives a shuddering sob and turns to me. “Oh, Lizzie, I was so afraid . . . I’ve been so afraid . . .”

  I put my arm around her shoulders. “I know.”

  “And there was nothing I could do. And when Father was alive, they all used to call me Princess of Scotland, as I was to marry the Scots king! Then to be pushed down to be Lady Scrope! And then to have no name at all! Oh, Lizzie, I’ve been vile to you.”

  “To everyone,” I remind her.

  “I know! I know!”

  “But now you’ll be a viscountess!” I say. “And no doubt better. Lady Margaret favors her family above everyone else, and Henry owes Sir John a debt of gratitude for his support. They’ll give him another title and lands. You’ll be rich, you’ll be noble, you’ll be allied to My Lady the King’s Mother, you’ll be—what?—her half sister-in-law, and kinswoman to the Stanley family.”

  “Anything for our sisters? What about our cousin Margaret?”

  “Nothing yet. Thomas Grey, Mother’s boy, is to come home later.”

  Cecily sighs. Our half brother has been like a father to us, fiercely loyal for all of our lives. He came into sanctuary with us, only breaking out to try to free our brothers in a secret attack on the Tower, serving at Henry’s court in exile, trying to maintain our alliance with him, and spying for us all the while. When Mother became sure that Henry was an enemy to fear, she sent for Thomas to come home, but Henry captured him as he was leaving. Since then, he has been imprisoned in France. “He’s pardoned? The king has forgiven him?”

  “I think everyone knows he did nothing wrong. He was a hostage to ensure our alliance, Henry left him as a pledge with the French king, but now that Tudor sees that we’re obedient, he can release Thomas and repay the French.”

  “And what about you?” Cecily demands.

  “Apparently, Henry’s going to marry me, because he can’t get out of it. But he’s in no sort of hurry. Apparently, everyone knows that he has been trying to renege.”

  She looks at me with sympathy. “It’s an insult,” she says.

  “It is,” I agree. “But I only want to be his queen; I don’t want him as a man, so I don’t care that he doesn’t want me as his wife.”

  WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, 30 OCTOBER 1485

  I watch from my bedroom window as the coronation barge goes down the river to the Tower, escorted by dozens of ships. I can hear the music ringing across the water. The royal barge has been regilded since we last sailed in it, and shines brightly golden on the cold water, while at prow and stern the flags of the Tudor red dragon and the Beaufort portcullis flap in triumph. Henry himself is a tiny figure. At this distance I can see only his long gown of purple velvet trimmed with ermine. He is standing so that everyone on the riverbanks can see him, arms akimbo, on the raised deck at the back of the barge. I shade my eyes and stare at him. This is the first time I have seen the man I am to marry, and at this distance he is no bigger than the tip of my little finger. The barge glides by, carrying my betrothed husband to his coronation without me, and he does not even know that I am watching him. He will not imagine that I put my little finger against the pane of thick glass to measure him, and then I snap my fingers with contempt.

  The rowers are all in livery of green and white, the Tudor colors, the oars painted white with bright green blades. Henry Tudor has commanded springtime colors in autumn; it seems that nothing in England is good enough for this young invader. Though the leaves fall from the trees like brown tears, for him everything must be as green as fresh grass, as white as May blossom, as if to convince us all that the seasons are upside down and we are all Tudors now.

  A second barge carries My Lady the King’s Mother, seated in her triumph on a high chair, almost a throne, so that everyone can see Lady Margaret sailing into her own at last. Her husband stands beside her chair, one proprietorial hand on the gilded back, loyal to this king as he swore he was loyal to the previous one, and the one before that. His motto, his laughable motto, is “Sans changer,” which means “always unchanged,” but the only way the Stanleys never change is their unending fidelity to themselves.

  The next barge carries Jasper Tudor, the king’s uncle, who will carry the crown at the coronation. My aunt Katherine, the prize for his victory, stands beside him, her hand resting lightly on his arm. She does not look up at our windows, though she will guess we are watching. She looks straight ahead, steady as an archer, as she goes to witness the crowning of our enemy, her beautiful face quite impassive. She was married once before for the convenience of her family, to a young man who hated her; she is accustomed to grandeur abroad and humiliation at home. It has been the price she has paid for a lifetime of being one of the beautiful Rivers girls, always so close to the throne that it has bruised her like a wound.

  My mother puts her arm around my waist, watching the procession with me. She says nothing, but I know that she is thinking of the day that we stood in sanctuary in the dark crypt below the abbey chapel, watching the royal barges go down the river, when they crowned my uncle Richard and passed over the true heir, my brother Edward. I thought then that we would all die in the darkness and solitude. I thought that an executioner would come for us silently one night. I thought I might wake briefly with the weight of a pillow on my face. I thought that I would never see sunshine again. I was a young woman then, and I thought that sorrow as deep as mine could only lead to death. I was grieving for my father and frightened by the absence of my brothers, and I thought that soon I would die too.

  I realize that this is the third victorious coronation barge to sail past my mother. When I was just a little girl and my brother Edward was not even born, she had to hide in sanctuary as my father the king was driven out of England. They brought back the old king and my mother stooped to look out of the low dirty window of the crypt under Westminster Abbey church to see Lady Margaret and her son Henry sail down the river in their pomp to celebrate the victory of the restored King Henry of Lancaster.

  I was only a little girl then, and so I don’t remember the ships sailing by nor the triumphant mother and her little son on a barge decked with red roses; but I do remember the pervasive scent of river water and damp. I do remember crying myself to sleep at night, utterly bewildered as to why we were suddenly living like poor people, hiding in a crypt under the chapel instead of enjoying the most beautiful palaces of the kingdom.

  “This is the third time you have seen Lady Margaret sail by in triumph,” I remark to my mother. “Once when King Henry was restored and she led the race to get to his court and introduce her son, once when her husband was high in Richard’s favor and she carried Queen Anne’s train at the coronation, and look, now she sails by you again.”

  “Yes,” she acknowledges. I see her gray eyes narrow as she watches the gloriously gilded barge and the proud flap of the standards. “But I always find her so very . . . unconvincing, even in her greatest triumphs,” she says.

  “Unconvincing?” I repeat the odd word.

  “She always looks to me like a woman who has been badly treated
,” my mother says, and she laughs joyously out loud, as if defeat is just a turn of the wheel of fortune and Lady Margaret is not on the rise and an instrument of the glorious will of God as she thinks, but has just been lucky on this turn, and is almost certain to fall on the next. “She always looks to me like a woman who has much to complain about,” my mother explains. “And women like that are always badly treated.”

  She turns to look at me, and laughs aloud at my puzzled expression. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “At any rate, we have her word that Henry will marry you, as soon as he is crowned, and then we’ll have a York girl on the throne.”

  “He shows few signs of wanting to marry me,” I say dryly. “I am hardly honored in the coronation procession. It’s not us on the royal barge.”

  “Oh, he’ll have to,” she says confidently. “Whether he likes it or not. The Parliament will demand it of him. He won the battle, but they won’t accept him as king without you at his side. He has had to promise. They’ve spoken to Thomas, Lord Stanley, and he, of all men, understands the way that power lies. Lord Stanley has spoken to his wife, she has spoken to her son. They all know that Henry has to marry you, like it or not.”

  “And what if I don’t like it?” I turn to her and put my hands on her shoulders so she cannot glide away from my anger. “What if I don’t want an unwilling bridegroom, a pretender to the crown, who won his throne through disloyalty and betrayal? What if I tell you that my heart is in an unmarked grave somewhere in Leicester?”

  She does not flinch, but confronts my angry grief, her face serene. “Daughter mine, you have known for all your life that you would be married for the good of the country and the advancement of your family. You will do your duty like a princess, wherever your heart is buried, whoever you want or don’t want, and I expect you to look happy as you do it.”