Rebellion (27 page)

In the New Year, details of the
Anglo–Burgundian alliance were proclaimed, followed by a pact between England and
Brittany.
Then finally King Edward announced his intentions to invade
France.

Louis' reaction to this was typically
indirect. He would provide Jasper Tudor with ships and men for an invasion of Wales.

She could see this tactic for what it was, a
diversion which together with the disturbances in England would prevent Edward from
doing anything immediately. But she was anxious that Louis was putting another of her
generals at risk, and so she wrote to Jasper, asking him to come to see her before he
left for Wales.

Jasper Tudor, half-brother to her husband,
had been a fugitive for many years. He had followed her from France to Bamburgh in 1463
and had been in Bamburgh Castle with the Duke of Somerset when the Earl of Warwick had
captured it. The Duke of Somerset had accepted a pardon from the king, but Jasper had
fled to Scotland. Since then he had become Queen Margaret's emissary, travelling, often
in disguise, between Wales and Ireland, France, northern England and Scotland.

His older brother and father had been
killed. His father had been a Welshman who had married the queen of England; his
half-brother, Henry, rightful king of England, was now imprisoned in the Tower. These
facts had shaped his life. His life did not belong to him, but to the cause that had
begun sometime before he was born and would continue, possibly, after his death.

He looked older, she thought as he
approached, but then he had always looked older. He was in his late thirties, she
supposed, but she would not have been surprised to hear that he was fifty. She had to
remember what his life had become: he could put down no roots and could talk freely to
no one. Obviously he had grown wary and distrustful; he was all thorns, this man. It had
been easier to like his brother, Edmund.

Yet there was something about him, a kind of
achieved innocence that came from the fact that he was bound to nothing and no one apart
from his one single purpose.

Perhaps, she thought irrelevantly, as he
took her hand, he
would spend the occasional night with someone he was
unlikely ever to see again.

He bowed stiffly over her hand but did not
kiss it. He murmured a formal greeting and she thanked him for coming out of his
way.

‘What has he given you?' she said as soon as
they were alone.

Jasper studied the floor and said,
‘Enough.'

‘Enough?'

After a pause he said that Louis had offered
him three ships.

‘Three ships?'

‘A bigger fleet would more easily be
seen.'

‘Three!'

‘Our support is in Wales itself.'

‘Ah, Louis,' she said, ‘do you want us to
fail?'

‘You forget, my lady,' Jasper said, ‘that
most of the English lords will be in Bruges with the king's sister.'

‘I do not forget it,' she said. ‘But what
does he expect you to achieve with three ships?' She paced up and down. ‘He is offering
you as a blood sacrifice,' she said.

Jasper said he did not look at it that way
at all. Many of the Welsh would respond to his summons. And he would land near Harlech –
the last bastion held by the Lancastrians. It had held out against the Yorkist regime
for seven years now, with help from the Irish. The soldiers there would support him and
he believed that many of the Irish too would fight for them.

‘And if they don't?' she said.

Jasper pulled the corners of his mouth down.
‘Then we will manage without them,' he said.

She stared at him, but his expression gave
nothing away. She thought of reminding him that this would be the third time he had
attempted to invade England and failed, but something stopped her. They could not afford
to make predictions from past evidence. He would not make any predictions at all. He had
learned to do only what he had to do at any one time.

After a silence she said,
‘Harlech will be surrounded by Herbert's men.'

‘I know.'

‘The biggest armed force in Wales.'

‘He will not be expecting the men of Wales
to rise against him.'

‘But if you defeat Herbert – what then?'

Jasper pulled his face again. ‘I should like
to retrieve my nephew.'

‘Your nephew?'

‘Edmund's son,' he said, looking at her
fully for the first time.

The queen sat back in her chair. Obviously
he would want to rescue his nephew, who had been placed in Herbert's care. But that was
almost as great a risk as attacking Harlech.

‘What will you do with him?'

Jasper said that, if he could, he would
bring him to the queen. It would be good for him to spend some time with his cousin the
prince. ‘They will be like brothers,' he said. ‘When your son is king it will be good
for him to have supporters of his own age and kin.'

The queen chose to accept this. She had no
choice but to believe in his loyalty. He had never once deviated from her cause, or that
of the prince.

‘Where is the prince?' he asked.

Her son was practising his fencing skills,
but he was overjoyed to see his uncle. He almost ran towards him, then, remembering his
age (he would be fifteen that year), he waited, smiling, while Jasper knelt.

‘It is good to see you, Uncle,' he said.

‘Your highness has grown tall,' said Jasper.
In fact, the prince was almost a head shorter than Jasper.

‘Uncle – watch me fence!'

They watched him training with John
Fortescue, whose man made the mistake of allowing the prince to knock his sword from his
hand.

‘Pick it up.'

‘Your highness –'

‘Pick it up! I am not a
child! You do not play with me!'

There was a moment of silence. John
Fortescue glanced at the queen and Jasper, uncertain whether to rebuke the prince in
their presence. Then Jasper stepped forward and picked up the sword himself.

Swiftly the atmosphere altered. The prince's
stance changed. He stood very straight and stared at his uncle with that dark, intent
gaze. Then he fought with a sharpened focus.

Jasper parried at first, lightly, easily,
allowing him to move in, then he too fought with an absolutely serious intent.

The queen had noticed before that the prince
was different with his uncle, never so rude or rebellious as with his usual trainers. It
was as though Jasper called out something different in him, something stricter, more
self-contained. Or as though he represented to the young boy who had no father – for she
had almost discounted the king as father – something he wished to become. But this
thought caused a shadow to fall across her heart, for Jasper had won no battles. He had
never given up, but had never won.

Just at that moment, in a lightning stroke,
Jasper disarmed the young prince.

Colour rose in the prince's face. For a
moment it looked as though he would say something angry or rude, but Jasper spoke
first.

‘I'm sorry, your highness – that was not
fair.'

Pride and humiliation battled in the
prince's face, but then he said, ‘It was fair.' And he walked away rapidly, without any
of the usual formalities.

The queen started to call him back, but
Jasper said, ‘Leave him.'

‘But –'

‘Leave him now. I will speak to him
later.'

And, later, she saw them both walking by the
lake. Jasper had his hand on her son's shoulder. He was talking and the prince was
listening in the way he no longer listened to her.

Jasper was good with him, she had to admit
it. He was so stern
and prickly with adults, yet able somehow to reach
out to this boy on the threshold of manhood and claim his respect. They were talking
together so privately and intimately that she would have walked away, but her son saw
her.

‘
Maman
,' he said, walking rapidly
towards her. ‘My uncle says he will sail tomorrow. And I want to go with him.'

Her stomach twisted. ‘No,' she said.

‘Why not? I am of age now. I want to go – to
reclaim my kingdom – that is my right.'

What could she say? That she would not let
him go on such a hopeless, doomed expedition, from which, in all likelihood, no one
would return? She could not say that because Jasper had come up behind the prince. He
hung back a little, but he was listening.

‘It's not time –'

‘You always say that – but it is time. I
will be fifteen soon – I will be able to rule alone!'

That was all he thought about – being king.
But she could hardly blame him for that, it was her doing.

‘We will sail to Wales then invade England,'
the prince said. ‘And then I will reclaim my throne.'

The queen looked at Jasper but he was
looking at the ground. ‘The time will come,' she said, and the prince started to
protest, but Jasper spoke up unexpectedly.

‘Your mother is right,' he said. ‘I will
make a preliminary excursion and, if all goes well, then you will follow with a larger
force.'

The young prince looked from his uncle to
his mother. His face had flushed again, but he would not argue with his uncle. He said,
‘And if it does not go well?'

‘Then you will be safe, at least,' said
Jasper. ‘Whatever happens, we must have a prince for the throne.'

The prince was not appeased. ‘I am tired of
being safe,' he said, and walked away from them both.

Again Jasper restrained her from calling him
back. ‘Let him go,' he said.

They watched him leave,
bristling with unrequited ambition. His head was full of the visions she had planted
there, of being king of both England and France. Then he would marry some princess of
Spain or Portugal and rule there also. And inherit his grandfather's kingdom of
Sicily.

One day, in his mind, he would be king of
the known world.

These were the visions that fired him, and
it was necessary for him to be fired; she would not take that away from him. Yet he had
never fought an actual battle. For all his expectations, he was still a
fourteen-year-old boy.

Her throat felt tight, watching him. But,
aware of Jasper watching her, she said, ‘It is just that he is tired of waiting.'

That much was true. They were all tired of
waiting in an exile that felt like imprisonment.

‘Patience is the warrior's friend,' Jasper
said. She gave him a sidelong glance. He would know about patience. What had his life
been but a waiting game? He knew nothing of the complexities of relationships; his heart
had grown lean as a husk.

But he was there, and her son loved him.

‘I hope,' she said, turning away from him
slightly because her voice was not steady, ‘I hope you will be successful – in your
mission. I mean – I should not like to lose another commander.'

She still could not bring herself to say
Pierre de Brézé's name.

Jasper said nothing. When she glanced at him
he was smiling, not at her but inwardly, in that way he had that seemed unrelated to
anything that had just been said. It was at such moments that the queen could see what
his life had become: a tangential, disconnected thing.

Certainly he was not Pierre de Brézé. He
would not comfort her. ‘All roads lead to death, my lady,' he said at last.

She was annoyed at him then for saying
something so obvious and unhelpful. ‘My son will be unhappy when you go,' she said.

‘I will speak to him,' said Jasper, and she
nodded.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘He will not listen to me.'
Which was the nearest
she could come to admitting that she was losing
her son, whether she let him go or not. She would not let him go this time, but the time
would surely come, and soon. In the meantime she would do what she could for his uncle,
because her son needed him. Turning to Jasper, she said, ‘You may take as many of my men
with you as you can fit into your ships.'

And for the first time Jasper's features set
into something resembling a real smile.

My Lord of Pembroke, brother of the
deposed King Henry of England, with some armed ships, has entered the country of
Wales which has always been well affected towards him … There is news that
when he entered he had some 4,000 English put to death, and he is devoting himself
to gathering as many of his partisans there as he can … The Welshmen have
taken up arms against King Edward and proclaimed Henry [VI] King …

Newsletter from Paris, 2 July 1468

One beautifully formed fiery blaze is
Harlech,

Men drawing from waves of blood –

Loud the shouting, loud the blast of
clarions

Scattering of men, thundering of guns,

Arrows flying in every quarter from seven
thousand men …

Thus King Edward as it were with one
volition

Gained possession of Bronwen's Court.

Lewis Glyn Cothi

Lord Herbert won the castle of
Harlech in Wales, a castle so strong that men said it was impossible for any man to
get it … And the Lord Jasper … went into hiding.

Gregory's Chronicle