A Dangerous Inheritance (37 page)

And because of that—oh, my sweet Ned, how can I bear it?—her letter cannot yet be sent to the Queen.

February 1484, Palace of Westminster

“Madonna, last summer there was an Italian visitor to court, Dominic Mancini,” Pietro Carmeliano said in hushed tones, although he and Kate were quite alone in the royal library. “He was my friend. He was in the train of the French ambassador, and his task was to send home reports of affairs in England. Thus he made it his business to know what was going on.”

“What was he like, this Dominic Mancini?” Kate asked.

“He was a monk, a very devout and compassionate man, and wise
too. He wrote an account of the rise of your father the King to the throne, but I never saw it completed, for it was unfinished when he left England last summer.” Pietro hesitated.

“Please speak freely!” Kate urged. “Whatever the truth, I would rather hear it.”

“Very well, Madonna. I will tell you everything.” And he did.

“Dominic got his information from several people at court, including Dr. Argentine, who was physician to your cousin, King Edward. Forgive me, Madonna, but Brother Dominic was suspicious of your father’s intentions from the start. He thought him ambitious and cunning. He knew Edward had been well served by Earl Rivers and Sir Richard Grey, and was shocked when my lord of Gloucester had them executed.”

“But they were a danger to my father,” she protested.

“Yes, Madonna, Brother Dominic knew that; he knew too that your father hated the Wydevilles and blamed them for his brother Clarence’s death. He found much to praise in Gloucester for governing the North well, for his renown in war, and for his exemplary private life. But even though Brother Dominic was appalled at the power wielded by the Wydevilles, he was impressed by the young King Edward, and praised him to the skies.”

Again Pietro hesitated. “Knowing that Gloucester hated and feared the Wydevilles, my friend came to believe that, from the moment he heard of King Edward’s death, the duke determined to take the throne for himself.”

“No, that was much later,” Kate insisted, “when Edward V was proved to be illegitimate.”

“Forgive me, Madonna. You asked me to tell you what I know, and I am only repeating what Dominic Mancini showed me in his book. And that was just his opinion, based on what he learned at court. I do not—how you say—comment on the truth of it.”

“I am sorry, Pietro,” Kate apologized. “Please go on.”

The Italian continued with Mancini’s account of the events following King Edward’s death, most of which was familiar to her. But she was disturbed to hear Mancini’s view of her father.

“Brother Dominic was convinced that the duke was in haste to remove
all the obstacles that stood in the way of his plans. He believed he was driven by ambition and lust for power, and that he had set his thoughts on eliminating everyone who stood in the way of his mastering the throne.”

“Everyone who was a threat to him, you mean!” Kate interrupted. “He was trying to do things honorably, as he made plain at the time, but he was beset by enemies.”

“That, I fear, was not Brother Dominic’s view. Would you prefer me not to go on?” Pietro was regarding her unhappily.

“Nay, I will hear it all, even if it is hateful to me,” she replied. “Only then can I weigh it wisely. You see, I know my father. He is a good, upright man. Why did Brother Dominic slander him so?”

“You tell me,” Pietro said. “He had no involvement in your English politics. He was just an observer, and an impartial one too.”

“But the information fed him may not have been impartial.”

“Forgive me, Madonna, but I think he had wit enough to judge of that.”

“And others might have judged it differently!” Kate was angry. It seemed that, whatever she said to counteract Dominic Mancini’s view of her father, Pietro had a rational argument against it. But this Mancini might well have been fed a distorted and hostile view of events. It stood to reason.

“Go on,” she commanded, a trifle coolly.

“As you wish, Madonna,” Pietro said. “It seemed to Brother Dominic that Gloucester felt his future was not sufficiently secure without the removal of those who were faithful to his brother’s offspring. Hastings was killed on a false pretext of treason, not by the enemies he had feared, but—it must be said—by a friend he had never doubted. After that, Gloucester put up the hue and cry for Lord Dorset, but he had prudently escaped abroad. Then something ominous occurred.”

“What?” Kate’s tone was sharp.

“After Hastings was removed, all the attendants who had waited on the King in the Tower were dismissed and debarred access to him.”

“My father said he could not trust them,” she argued. “He feared that Dorset had suborned them. How did Brother Dominic know that, anyway?”

“Dr. Argentine told him.”

“Was Dr. Argentine dismissed too?”

“No, Madonna. He was treating the young King for a swelling of the jaw. The King was in much pain with his teeth and gums. The duke could hardly dismiss his doctor. But the boy was now effectively a prisoner. Dr. Argentine confided to Brother Dominic that Edward believed death was facing him and, like a victim prepared for sacrifice, sought remission of his sins daily. He was without all hope, and sunk in despair.”

“No, I will not believe it!” Kate cried out. “My father would never have countenanced him suffering thus. He kept on the doctor! Was that not a kindness? And the King was ill and in pain. Probably he feared he would die of his malady, not by violence.”

“But Madonna, Dr. Argentine seems also to have feared violence.” The little Italian looked unhappy. “And it was just after that that the duke surrounded the sanctuary with soldiers and forced the Queen to surrender the Duke of York into his keeping. For well he knew that York would be King if anything happened to Edward V.”

“But my father feared the Wydevilles! That was at the root of it all. A child cannot seek sanctuary. It was not right to keep him there. And in the Queen’s hands, York was a threat to my father. But she would not give him up, and so he had to make her.”

“Well, Madonna, you may put your own interpretation on these events. But Brother Dominic told me that soon after York was sent to join his brother, the two princes were withdrawn into the inner apartments of the Tower, and day by day began to be seen more rarely behind the bars and windows. Occasionally people could see them shooting at the butts in the lieutenant’s garden.”

Kate thought of Caesar’s Tower, that massive white keep: that was where they were being held, no doubt. It was said to be so strong and secure that no one could possibly escape, or attempt a rescue, so it made sense that her father had confined his nephews there. Given the plots to rescue Edward V, it had been a wise decision.

“Gloucester then began acting like a king, putting off his mourning robes and wearing purple,” Pietro was saying, and Kate recalled her father riding triumphantly through London in that great purple mantle.
“He had the sons of King Edward declared bastards. He had corrupted preachers to proclaim them as such, putting forward some false tale about a precontract.”

“It was not false!” Kate averred.

“Brother Dominic thought it was.”

“Brother Dominic was clearly not a reliable witness,” she countered.

“That is as may be, Madonna. I but relate what he wrote. And he said that the lords in London, seeing the alliance of Gloucester and Buckingham, and perceiving that the dukes’ power was supported by a multitude of troops, became fearful for their own safety. They had heard of the fates of Lord Hastings, Rivers, and Grey, and decided it would be hazardous to resist Buckingham’s calls for Gloucester to be acknowledged King. And so they consented, and Gloucester occupied the kingdom. Brother Dominic left England after the coronation. It was just before he departed that he told me he had heard that the princes had ceased to appear at the windows of the Tower. He said he had seen many grown men burst into tears and lamentations when mention was made of them after their removal from men’s sight; already there was a suspicion they had been done away with. That was long before the rumors of which you speak.”

“But it was only a suspicion,” Kate insisted, clutching at the loophole in the argument, although again the uncomfortable memory of Lord Stanley weeping came to her unbidden. “Was there any proof?”

“There was no proof, Madonna. Brother Dominic wrote that, as to whether the princes had been done away with, and in what manner, he could not say.”

“So his account is based on speculation,” Kate said firmly. “Others might place another construction on these events.”

“Indeed they might, Madonna. As I said, I but repeat what I heard. I trust you will not hold that against me.” The little man looked nervous: he must know that much of what he had said might be construed as treason.

“Of course not,” Kate replied, but already she was aware that there would be no more afternoons spent in the library with Master Pietro Carmeliano. In her mind, he would forever be associated with this sordid
fantasy of a tale. True, she had pressed him to recount it, and he had been reluctant; but its unfolding was more disturbing and distasteful than she could ever have anticipated. And yet, despite that, she still believed in her father’s integrity, for Pietro’s allegations rode so ill with what she knew of him. It was all malicious invention, she told herself.

She did not linger after that—she just wanted to get away. And when she did, she asked discreetly around the court as to whether anyone had seen Dr. Argentine. She wanted desperately to speak to him, for he, of all people, would perhaps know if the princes still lived, and in what conditions. But no one could answer her. She met with blank looks and shaking heads.

Eventually, unwillingly, she returned to the library. Pietro must know the doctor’s whereabouts, surely. He was still there, scratching away with his quill pen.

“I forgot to ask,” she said. “Where can I find Dr. Argentine?”

Was it fear she glimpsed fleetingly in Pietro’s eyes?

“Why do you seek him, Madonna?” he asked.

“To find out more about my cousins, since you cannot tell me the latest news of them.”

“Alas, I cannot. You are months too late. Dr. Argentine also left England after the coronation, and where he is now I could not say.”

“He was made to leave?”

“No, Madonna—he fled.”

August–September 1559; Eltham Palace
,

Nonsuch Palace, Whitehall Palace

July brought news that the King of France was dead, killed by a lance piercing his eye during a tournament. His son, Francis II, being married to the Scottish Queen Mary, my cousin, now saw fit to use the royal arms of England in her right. It was a deadly insult to Queen
Elizabeth, for it proclaimed her a usurper, unfit by stain of bastardy to wear her crown. And verily, from that moment, I am sure, she began to hate the Queen of Scots.

But something has come to light to convince Elizabeth that I am even more of a danger to her than Mary.

I knew nothing of it, I swear it. Kindly, supportive Feria had gone home and been replaced as ambassador by Bishop de Quadra, and although the Bishop has been lavish in his courtesy and compliments, I have never had any cause to trust him—rather the opposite. And now it has been discovered that the Spaniards were plotting my abduction to Spain, where I was to be wed to King Philip’s son, Don Carlos, and be proclaimed heiress presumptive to the English throne. It is bad enough that Don Carlos is a deformed sadist with a penchant for torturing servants and animals, but worse still that Philip, de Quadra, and all the others involved in the plot assumed that my consent was a foregone conclusion.

“You have only yourself to blame,” scolded Kat Astley, Chief Lady of the Bedchamber, when I came begging an audience with the Queen to protest my innocence. “You have shown yourself discontented and complained you are held in poor regard by Her Majesty.”

“But I did nothing to encourage the Spaniards,” I wailed, seeing that the door to the privy chamber was still firmly closed to me.

“Your discontent was enough,” I was told tartly. “Aye, and your Romish faith. No wonder the Queen cannot abide you!”

I fled in tears to the safety of my chamber, and there flung myself on my bed and wept my heart out for very despair. And thus I have continued to this day, beset on every side by dread and fear: of what the Queen might do to me, if she chooses to believe that I was involved in that dastardly plan; of what others might yet be plotting on my behalf; and of how this might impact on Ned and me, and our hopes of marriage. In vain have I written to my ailing mother, begging her to send her letter to the Queen, or to come herself, if she can, to plead our cause; but there has been no reply. This I see as ominous: either she is too ill, or—I fear—she has forsaken me, thinking our matter too difficult.

——

At last I have news of my lady, and it is encouraging: she writes that she is feeling a little better. And Ned is here! When the Queen began her summer progress, he himself was unwell, and sent word to say he was sorry he could not be present, but now he has returned to court, and the summer days suddenly seem sunnier and more golden. We seize every moment to be together.

“There is great love between you two, I wis!” young Lady Anne Russell trills. I look at her in alarm. I had not thought we had been so transparent. “Oh, yes, the whole world is talking about you!” she declares, to my dismay.

Three days later, in the maidens’ dorter, Douglas Howard, another of the Queen’s ladies, seeks me out.

“I hear you are like turtle doves with Lord Hertford,” she mutters, “and everyone is saying that nothing can come of it, for he is using you to further his own interests, and means you no good.”

“What do you know of it?” I seethe. “You and all the others? You have no idea! I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself!” And I go to bed in a temper.

But Ned is true, I’d swear on that. Daily he gives me proof of his love. At Nonsuch, the most exquisite little jewel of a palace ever built, my uncle, the Earl of Arundel, lays on great entertainments for the delight of the Queen, and Ned and I have plenty of opportunities to meet at the lavish banquet, the ornate masque, the hunt in the park, and the play performed by the choristers of St. Paul’s. The revelry goes on until three o’clock in the morning, and then Ned and I escape to walk in the groves and kiss by the marble fountains. Such snatched moments are bliss to me.