Anne of Warwick The Last Plantagenet Queen

by Paula Simonds Zabka

  “It pleases me.” She didn’t bother to hide a yawn. “To bed before all my queenly dignity is gone.”

  IV. CHAPTER 9

  At Middleham, Ned waited. A new tutor, a clerk from York named Master Richard Bernall, instructed Ned in the arts and sciences. Bernall had a wispy beard and an addiction to Froissart’s The Government of King and Princes. John Elingwald gave lessons in Latin. Father Michael had him sing in the choir. Ned was disappointed when, after Christmas, he’d had to stop, for singing made him cough. He was becoming more frail with each passing day.

  “Your voice will soon change anyway.” Father Michael had patted his shoulder. “And soon you’ll be going to London with your parents.”

  In January, he measured himself against a secret mark on the wall of the Round Tower. He stretched, trying to be taller.

  His grandmother reassured him. “Your father is short too, Ned. I remember well when he trained here at Middleham. He was the smallest in the tilt yard. Now he’s King and proven himself a fierce soldier.” The Countess of Warwick tried to forget the battle of Barnet where Richard had defeated her husband. But she remembered that he had also rescued her from a dreary confinement in Beaulieu Castle. Most of all he’d made Anne happy. How close her daughter had come to death in France. Now she was Queen.

  “I’ll wager you’ll be taller by Spring when your parents come.” She smiled at Ned.

  The boy curled up beside her. “Father Michael says I should be patient. I’m a Plantagenet.”

  “Yes, and you will have your day, Ned.” The Countess hugged the boy. “Are you anxious to see London?”

  “Oh yes. Then, of course, I’ll come back to Middleham.” His eyes were dreamy. “London must be a great city.”

  “Yes. A busy city.” The Countess of Warwick wanted to cuddle him as she would a baby, but knew, though small, he reached for manhood. She also feared the subtle deterioration in his health that had her hoping that Richard and Anne would make haste to Middleham from London.

  There was an aroma of Spring about the thawing earth as Anne and Richard left London for Middleham. Bits of green showed in the stony chinks of country walls as they and their entourage, including Nan and Francis Lovell, approached Cambridge. Yet there was also a cutting chill in the air, for it was but the first week in March. The waters of the Cam River, turbulent with spring rains, rushed beneath weeping willows and overhanging birches barren of leaves. On the road to town, people clomped along in the slush wearing clogs. Children tumbled on the damp ground in muddy pleasure.

  “It’s not yet fit weather for travel.” Phillippa pulled at her skirts. “My feet are freezing cold.” Middle age had come quickly in her thirties. Yet she was satisfied enough these days with the knowledge she would soon be reunited with Isabel’s children residing at Sheriff Hutton, near Middleham.

  “Do you want a Saint Christopher medal? I have three..” Anne tried to be encouraging.

  Phillippa held out her hand. “I’m not a good traveler. May Saint Christopher give me strength.”

  “We stop at the University first. We’ll be there soon. These academicians want to see a Queen, not a bedraggled wayfarer. So I must look my best.”

  “You always do, m’Lady.” Phillippa’s hand closed about the medal. “Your jewels are in the padded coffer. I saw to your gowns myself.”

  Distantly, the handsome line of Cambridge University’s towers and steeples cut across the gray sky. “It will be a pleasant interlude. Richard is to make a gift to Queen’s College. Monies and scholarships are to be given to King’s College. A special Mass will be celebrated for our good welfare.”

  Phillippa showed scant interest. It had begun to rain. “I’ll be glad when we’re in Yorkshire.”

  “Yes.” Anne looked ahead to where Richard rode, surrounded by his attendants. She knew he pleasurably anticipated discussing politics and his recent reforms with the professors. He had mentioned that he planned to send professors to Italy to study this New Learning called the Renaissance. She pulled her hood over her hair. The rain was growing harder. The respite in Cambridge was welcome, yet this journey had only one destination--Middleham.

  So their stay was happy, but brief. Richard talked with the learned teachers and flustered but proud students, gave further gifts, and hurried on. From Cambridge, they journeyed to Buckden to enjoy the hospitality of one of Chancellor Russell’s manors, and then to Fotheringhay. Here where he’d been born, Richard knelt at the graves of his father and long-dead brother, Edmund of Ruthland. Followed by a crowd of retainers, Richard took his wife to the north battlements to look down upon the spring-swollen Nene River and rich pasture land. Still, they didn’t linger, and the next day traveled by the forest of Rockingham and into Leicestershire. The Spring rains blew down cold and gray from the North so they tarried at Nottingham, not attempting to cross the raging Trent.

  “A gloomy pile of stones.” Phillippa critically perused the solar at Nottingham Castle while coffers were being unpacked until fairer weather returned. She wet a finger and held it up. “By my faith, m’lady, the wind blows in here near as hard as it does outside.”

  “Nottingham’s a fortress, Phillippa.” Anne stood before the fire the servants had already coaxed into a blaze. She hoped no one would see how she trembled with chills. The last hour, up the incline to the top of the rocky foundation of the Castle, had been a weary, prolonged journey through a cold and baleful nether world.

  Yet, it was at Nottingham Richard wished to center the government this coming summer, feeling a strength in its locality, at the center of England, and a reassurance too, in the massive dark walls and up-thrusting battlements. If Henry Tudor should be fool enough to attack England this summer, an army could move speedily from Nottingham to almost any place in the realm.

  Richard was busy setting up his headquarters but Anne knew that he too longed to see Ned and wanted to move on. His own restlessness to keep pushing northward had been as great as hers, though it hadn’t been truly fit weather for travel a single day along the way. Anne, turning her hands back and forth before the fire, was startled to hear Phillippa’s voice cut into her musing.

  “Lady, you look tired as a lost lamb. It’s well we stopped.” She jerked her head and one of the London ladies, Dame Kate Shelby, came sniffling over. “Find a warm and dry cloak for the Queen,” Phillippa ordered.

  Dame Kate tossed her head. Like most Londoners, she’d obviously no use for the North.

  With quick fingers, Phillippa began to unbind Anne’s hair, which curled in the dampness. She slipped a dry cloak, rich with marten lining about her mistress, and pulled a joint stool in front of the fire. “Rest there, m’Lady,” she murmured. “Don’t they think to bring us any food here?”

  “And some torches. It grows dark.” Kate sniffled again, and several maids, part of the regular staff at Nottingham, tittered. “I think this fortress a safe place for goblins, but not Christian folk.” The dame crossed herself and irritably began hanging out clothes.

  Anne rested her head in her hands and stared thoughtfully at the fire. She must look very wan indeed. Seldom had she seen Phillippa so brisk, though since the coronation the woman had her full share of pride.

  “I wish we could continue on to Middleham tomorrow.”

  “Ah, Lady, it’s truly best we rest here a few days. There’s plenty of time. The roads are foul. We’re all journey-weary.”

  Phillippa said more, but Anne didn’t hear her. She was hearing something else--a foreboding din of bells, a whimper of anguish filling her mind. She stood and turned. Why were they unpacking? “We should leave now for Middleham!”

  Phillippa was by her side. “All will be better after you eat and sleep, m’Lady.” The words slid into Anne’s awareness in broken pieces between the tolling bells in her mind.

  “No. No.” She pulled the cloak about her. “We must go to Middleham now!” She stared at Phillippa. “Don’t you feel it? In the rain, on the wind--listen!”

  “I hear not
hing, m’Lady. Only a spring storm.” Phillippa’s hand pressed against Anne’s forehead. “You’re ill. I’ll summon the King.”

  Suddenly the strange feelings were over. “It must have been the pattering rain and wailing wind. Nothing more. I’m fine. I must need to rest. I hear nothing now. In fact, Phillippa, they’ll be blowing the supper horn soon. I’ll wear my lemon velvet with the butterfly headdress. It will light up this dismal fortress.”

  The rain didn’t stop. Reports came that bridges were out all the way north. The new postal service had gone no further than Lincoln in spite of the best horses. They waited. Nevertheless, each day, the Queen wore a bright dress and had Phillippa arrange her hair in courtly styles, hair so long it came almost to her knees. “It is still flaxen, like a child’s.” Phillippa noticed that every morning and evening, Richard kissed Anne’s hair as he had done when they first wed.

  Yet, even in each other’s arms, their sleep was troubled. It wasn’t such a great distance to Middleham now but it seemed a world away.

  IV. CHAPTER 10

  On April 14, the day of St. Justin the Martyr, as the bells rang for Vespers, Richard and Anne stood facing Father Michael who had ridden hard from Middleham. The monk still wore his damp and travel-splotched robes. There was a daub of mud on his cheek, dark against the pallor of his skin, and the brightness of his eyes had faded into a blank night.

  “My children, I was compelled to bring you news from Middleham personally.”

  “What news? The Prince? Something about our son?” Richard’s words were in one breath.

  “Your Graces, I prayed for words to say what I must tell you. I was so sure God had you all in His loving care. About a fortnight ago the Prince, Ned, became ill with some slight ague, a little coughing. He didn’t seem sick. He was forever at the window in the Round Tower or on the south battlements, watching for your return. He talked constantly of London. Then his voice became hoarse and he developed a fever. Three days ago.... Forgive me. I did all I could.”

  “No!” Richard seized the monk’s shoulders. “My son has died?”

  “Aye, my Lord. He is with Christ. For sure, he was without sin.” Father Michael bowed his head.

  It came to Anne in one great rendering, the death of her soul. She reached for Richard to hold her. She’d no strength left. It was agony for her to remember the feelings urging her to hurry to Middleham, wondering if she could have stood between Ned and death. Richard encircled his wife in his arms. Outside bells continued to ring and the rain splattered against the panes.

  “He didn’t suffer.” Father Michael tried to console them. “He was so frail. On the day he died, he talked only of you. He was waiting for you patiently and bravely.”

  “Thank you for coming in this terrible storm, Father.” Richard’s voice was but a whisper.

  The monk made the sign of the cross over them. “I will be nearby if I can help. May Christ the Comforter find your heart and give you peace.”

  They didn’t answer. There was no possible reply and there was little that could comfort them. Not for this. Ned was gone. Meaning was gone. Anne wept in that cold room at Nottingham, and Richard’s tears mingled with hers. They didn’t speak of consolation, but held to each other. It was a long time later that Richard finally said, “We had him for eleven years, Anne. At least that much.”

  She looked at Richard and saw the sorrow of his face, the pain in his eyes. He was a King without an heir and a barren wife. They had indeed known happy years with their Ned. There was a time to live. Now came the time to die a mental anguish.

  The next day, dressed in black, they road forth bound for Middleham. With each step north the mist in the air grew heavier and the gray arch of the sky closed about them so they could see but a little way ahead. Through the villages, by the dripping darkness of Sherwood Forest, they rode on to Pontefract and Knaresborough. The people watched in silence, many also in mourning, while knelling church bells tolled in rounds of eleven at each village.

  Anne pulled her black hood about her face, for she’d have no one see her. She heard men whisper that they’d not have recognized Richard. Many of these Northerners had known him since he was a young boy. Suffering set the line of his mouth, and he called to no one in greeting. At Jervaulx, the monks begged them to rest, but they would not. There was no sound in the earth those last miles except the sucking of the horses’ feet in the muddy road. All the while, even the sky wept.

  Anne seldom spoke. Words found no meaning. On the first night, she had told Richard simply, “I love you, but I died with Ned.” He spoke of his own hell. “God has punished me for taking the crown.”

  She shook her head, knowing the futility of any reasoning with him about that just now. He would think this until the day he, too, died. A God of stern judgment and untempered justice had taken his son.

  For her, there was not even that shred of faith left. Except for Richard now, there was nothing.

  In the evening fog, they approached Middleham. The gates were raised. They rode into the courtyard. Already there’d been a Requiem Mass in the chapel, prayers, the lighting of candles, and always the bells. The monks from Jervaulx had come and John Elingwald was there from Sheriff Hutton. Her mother wept, and tried for words of acceptance. “God loved him to take him so.”

  Anne was dimly aware Phillippa, as well as Nan Lovell, were looking at her anxiously. She began walking up the stairs to the upper level. The wind blew at her skirts. It was very cold. All her world was cold emptiness.

  In the Great Hall, she turned to her mother. “You held him when he died?”

  “Yes, Anne. Between one breath and the next. Only eleven years in all time. Such a short moment of joy. Ned loved life.”

  “Tell me the truth. Did he suffer?”

  “No, it was as though he just went to sleep.”

  “I’m glad at least you were with him, mother. I want to see him before the casket is closed.”

  The Countess shook her head. “He’s very tiny in death, Anne, and it has been six days. The death changes are upon him. All was done properly. Wouldn’t you prefer to remember him as he was.... alive and smiling?”

  Tears slid down Anne’s cheeks. “But I never said good-bye.”

  Richard stood by her. “We’ll go together, Anne.”

  It was dim in the chapel. They knelt at the back and then, hand in hand, walked the short distance to where the casket rested in front of the altar. Ned was dressed in the white suit he’d worn for his investiture, and was bounded by sprays of fresh cut boughs of Yew with their tips of springtime green. His face was childish, much younger than eleven, his waxen cheeks sunken. Anne smelled the incense, the greenery, and then lightly touched Ned’s hair.

  Richard knelt and in silence took his own chain collar with the Plantagenet crest and laid it beside the child.

  “Ned is with God, Anne.”

  “But that we could have been with him, held him once more to know his sweet smile and gentle laughter.” She pressed her hand against the ache in her throat. “If God has any mercy, He’ll take me too, so I can be with him.”

  “Sweeting, I need you now more than ever.”

  The candles flickered across Richard’s face, a face of despair.

  “I’ll be by your side for as long as I am able, Richard.”

  Richard held her and they gazed at the body of their son. “I thought the world was mine,” he said slowly, “but when I closed my hand about it, I found my hand was empty.”

  “Richard, you still have England.”

  “The only kingdom I’ll ever know, God forgive me for believing so.” Slowly he led her from the chapel. She remembered Ned’s baptism at the altar where he now lay. The few sunlit hours of Ned’s life became a precious memory. Still close together, they walked back to the Great Hall of the Keep. Servants and retainers watched them; friends waited in anxious uneasiness. Richard led his wife in silence across the connecting bridge to their private solar.

  The rain finally stop
ped. Nan Lovell brought flowers. The Countess and Phillippa attended Anne. Time blurred. Most days were spent in the Presence Chamber. Long shadows of western light, radiating from the bay window, laid patterns across the floor. Anne sat by Richard’s side while he designed a tomb for their son.

  It was to be carved in alabaster, the marbled stone that glowed with its own light. The head of the effigy would rest on a stone pillow and be forever crowned with a coronet. Carefully, Richard drew the first outline on the parchment with a quill pen.

  Anne touched his arm. “Let the hands be raised in prayer--in a sign of reverence.”

  Richard drew the hands, delicate, childlike. Then he added the crest of the Heraldic Eagle of the Earldom of Salisbury near the pillow, for this was the first title Ned had held. Working with slow precision, he added the Badge of the Garter on the shield and the Plantagenet arms.

  She watched him, remembering the lifetime of memories encompassed in the room. Anne blinked back tears when Richard drew the Neville arms on a shield, to be placed at the end of the tomb.

  “He was Warwick’s grandson,” he said simply. He pointed with the quill to the empty space still left beside the feet of the linear effigy. “Here I’ll have the crowned lion of England. His control broke and he threw the quill into the rushes. “God--my God--why couldn’t he have lived? He was so young and innocent.”

  She couldn’t answer. Richard must somehow find life meaningful again. For Richard, England must be enough.

  At the end of April, they set forth, a funeral cortege of black against the bright landscape. The hearse was drawn by six black horses, the coffin draped in sable black and silver. They first stopped at Fountains Abbey where Ned’s coffin was placed beneath the great window and high altar. Here Father Michael requested to stay. He hoped endless devotion would bring him again to God in the great Cistercian Abbey.

  The next night, in York Minster, they placed the bier before the cathedral altar. People of the city knelt and wept as they listened to the chanting of the monks and the echoing notes of the Miserere. The third night, they reached Sheriff Hutton.