10 - The Goldsmith's Daughter (4 page)

My wife’s smiling face told me that she was enjoying her visit to London even more than she had expected to do. These intriguing glimpses into the lives of the royal family and the court made her feel part of a wider, less parochial world than the one she normally inhabited.

Next came a procession of guildsmen in all their fur-trimmed finery, followed by the Lord Mayor and his aldermen in their glory of scarlet hoods and gowns. And then a great fanfare of trumpets heralded the approach of the bride.

She walked, a small, upright figure between the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, glancing coldly to right and left, seemingly finding it difficult to move, so weighed down was she by her gown of cloth-of-gold and a multitude of jewels. All I can remember of her expression was the look of blighting indifference she cast at the crowds. Not so the Duke and Duchess, who smiled and nodded and occasionally offered a hand to be kissed. But their greetings were mechanical, and I thought how haggard they both looked. Prince Richard’s face, in particular, was pinched and lined with worry, its pallor accentuated by the rich crimson and purple of his wedding robes. Today, he must appear happy and joyful; but tomorrow, his brother would be brought to trial on a charge of high treason.

As the royal party drew nearer, I withdrew suddenly into the shadow of the chapel doorway, wishing that we had not placed ourselves to such advantage. I had no wish to be noticed by the Duke, previous encounters between us having invariably resulted in my undertaking some commission for him – commissions that had led me into personal danger. I therefore breathed a sigh of relief as he, together with the Duchess and the bride, passed into Saint Stephen’s Chapel without seeing me.

And now here at last was the little bridegroom, flanked by the King and Queen, and looking every bit as indifferent as his future wife. Boredom was written large on a face that had not yet lost the dimpled curves of infancy, and as we all watched, he gave a tremendous yawn, not bothering to conceal it behind his hand. His mother said something to him sharply, and his face puckered as if he were about to cry. Only the sudden weight of the King’s hand on his shoulder seemed to deter him, and he fought back the tears. I recollected Margaret’s strictures on the marriage of two such young children, and my heart went out to them.

Mine, it appeared, was not the only one; for while we waited outside in the cold for the Nuptial Mass to be celebrated, the general buzz of conversation was of the iniquity of such a wedding. But then, as Jack Nym had argued, it was the nobility’s way, and who were we to say it was wrong, so long as it had the sanction of the Church?

Suddenly the chapel doors were flung open, once more revealing the great cavern of warmth and light and colour, spilling out its radiance into the grey January morning. The bride and groom emerged, followed by the King and Queen and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. Two attendants advanced, carrying bowls of coins into which King and Duke dipped their hands, tossing a shower of gold to the waiting people.

Everyone was trying to catch as many coins as possible, and I, momentarily throwing caution to the wind, reached up with the rest. Because of my height, I towered over my neighbours and might have caught more than I did but for the fact that, glancing round, I found myself looking straight into the eyes of the Duke of Gloucester.

I
don’t know what I expected from this exchange of glances; that Timothy Plummer would suddenly materialise at my elbow, perhaps, with orders that his master wished to see me without delay? Of course, no such thing happened: my lord of Gloucester’s Spymaster General was nowhere to be seen.

Nevertheless, I could not shake off a feeling of uneasiness. The Duke’s smile had been accompanied by a long, hard stare, and, in consequence, I was unable to enter into Adela and Jeanne’s excitement at this sign of royal recognition. It was a source of congratulation, and of some self-importance, to the two women for quite a while after the newly-wed couple and their guests had vanished into Westminster Hall for the wedding feast. But I could see that Philip was unimpressed and shared my worry.

‘You want to make yourself scarce, my lad,’ he growled in my ear, as we made our way towards the cook shops, all of us hungry from the cold and ready for our dinner. ‘The Duke of Gloucester’s nothing but a source of trouble where you’re concerned.’

I nodded. ‘The same idea has already occurred to me. But, on reflection, I believe we’re both being over-cautious. He has too much on his mind at this present to think up any commissions for me to do. Tomorrow’s trial of the Duke of Clarence must be weighing heavily on his mind. There can be no room in his thoughts for anything else.’

‘You won’t go to the trial, though, as you originally planned? You wouldn’t be so foolish as to tempt fate in that way, now would you?’ Philip urged.

‘Oh . . . I’ll make sure I’m not noticed,’ I answered evasively, loath to forgo my purpose. Philip sighed heavily. ‘In that case, I wash my hands of you,’ he said.

We exchanged no further words on the subject, but my old friend’s disapproval was plain.

We caught up with our wives at one of the many stalls selling hot meat pies and steaming ribs of beef, and Adela, now that we had a little extra money on account of the two gold coins I had managed to catch, wanted to try a dish of baked porpoise tongues, a delicacy that had not before come in her way. I dissuaded her, however.

‘They may not agree with the child,’ I suggested, patting her stomach.

Reluctantly, she agreed, and settled for a meat pie instead. But then, against my advice – or, maybe, because of it – she insisted on drinking a cup of hot, spiced ale to warm her. I thought it a mistake, but was wise enough to make no further protest. Adela was too independent a woman to be driven in any direction she did not wish to go, and must be allowed to learn her lessons in her own way. I did venture to mention that the Westminster alemongers put a liberal sprinkling of pepper in their beer, but my comment was ignored.

It was no great surprise to me, therefore, as the day wore on, and as we pushed and fought our way from stall to stall through the jostling holiday crowds, to note that Adela’s face was contorted every now and then in spasms of discomfort. Eventually, it became obvious that she had lost all interest in the hats and ribbons, laces, shoes and petticoats, and in the hundred and one other goods being offered for sale, wanting nothing so much as to lie down and be quiet.

‘I’m sorry,’ she confessed at last, ‘but I’ve the most terrible burning pain in my breast. It’s the child, of course. You were right, Roger. I should have listened to you and not touched that ale.’

Jeanne Lamprey was immediately all concern, and she and Philip insisted on accompanying us nearly all the way to the Voyager in spite of our urging them to stay where they were.

‘There’s no good reason why we should spoil your holiday,’ Adela protested.

But they would have none of it, persuading us, with, I believe, some truth, that they were tired and would be glad to return home.

‘There are too many thieves and pickpockets about on these occasions,’ Philip grumbled. ‘A man’s hard-earned money isn’t safe.’

They went with us as far as the Great Conduit, where we parted company with mutual promises of seeing one another again within the next few days.

‘And take my advice,’ Philip whispered to me at parting. ‘Don’t go to Westminster Hall tomorrow.’

I went to bed worried about Adela, and with the idea of following his advice. But when, the next day, my wife declared herself so much better, and only wishful of a morning in bed in order to recover fully from yesterday’s exertions, I found myself with time on my hands. The consequence was well-nigh inevitable.

Westminster Hall was crammed to suffocation, and there was not a seat to be had anywhere. Outside, the bitter January wind was whipping through the streets, making the assembled crowds blow on their red, chapped hands and stamp their feet in an effort to combat the cold. But, by arriving early, I had just managed to squeeze through the doors, and now stood at the back of the hall in company with two dozen or so equally determined curiosity seekers. I could already feel the prickle of sweat under my arms and down my spine.

Others were also suffering from the heat generated by this press of bodies. The Duke of Buckingham, appointed Lord High Steward for the occasion, was wiping his neck with a silken handkerchief, while the Duke of Suffolk’s fleshy face was suffused with blood, looking like nothing so much as a piece of raw meat. But it was not simply the warmth that was making us sweat. There was another emotion abroad, ugly and dark; the expectation, the anticipation of death.

On some countenances, like that of the Duke of Gloucester, it took the semblance of fear; fear for the death of a loved one. On others, it reflected the shame that two brothers, one of them the King, should be about to rend each other in public. And on still others, as on the face of John Morton, Master of the Rolls, it had twisted itself into a look of greed for the skill and thrill of the chase and the final destruction of the quarry.

The sound of muted cheering heralded the arrival of King Edward; and as soon as he had taken his place on the central dais, the Duke of Clarence, who had earlier been brought by water to Westminster from the Tower, was led to the bar. I was shocked to see how thin and pale he had grown, but at the sight of his old arrogant, contemptuous smile, I guessed that however much his appearance might have altered, no real inward change had taken place.

The King gestured for the proceedings to begin, and the Chancellor, Thomas Rotheram, Archbishop of York, rose ponderously to his feet to deliver a sermon on – if my memory serves me aright – the subject of fidelity towards one’s sovereign. When he had finished, he sat down again, drawing his episcopal robes about him, rather like a bird folding its wings after flight, and King Edward indicated that the Bill of Attainder should be read.

The Duke of Buckingham, whose task this was, was noticeably nervous, his breath catching in his throat on more than one occasion, and twice faltering almost to a stop. Finally, he had done, and a profound silence settled over the hall, broken only by the occasional cough or a shuffling of feet. The King waited, his steely gaze resting on first one face and then another, but nobody moved: everyone sat as though carved out of stone. At last, when it became apparent that no one was willing to continue the proceedings, he stood up himself, with a suddenness that made his neighbours jump.

Brother faced brother across the hall.

It began quietly, the King reproaching the Duke for his constant treachery and reminding him of his own constant forgiveness. The Duke answered, in a tone equally subdued, that a divided family had naturally resulted in divided loyalties; and as he spoke, he glanced towards the serried ranks of Woodvilles. There, said his look, was the real cause of the division between himself and his elder brother.

The King hesitated, then shifted his ground. Had he not always loved George and treated him well? Had he not given him more money and lands than any King of England had ever before bestowed upon a brother? Had he not made him one of the two richest men in the kingdom after himself? And how had the ungrateful George repaid him?

‘By depriving me of my crown and driving me out of the country! Me! Your own flesh and blood!’

Clarence laughed at that, and I saw the Duke of Gloucester flinch from the sound. I could guess what he was thinking; that the Duke’s last hope of throwing himself on the King’s mercy had gone. And so it proved. The polite, civilised masks were torn off and cast away. It was no longer brother and brother, no longer subject and overlord. It wasn’t even man and man, but two animals, fanged and clawed.

‘You are malicious, unnatural and loathsome!’ shouted the King.

‘And you are a bastard!’ yelled the Duke. ‘Hasn’t our own mother more than once offered to prove you so?’

‘Leave our mother’s name out of this! Did you not unlawfully order the execution of the Widow Ankaret Twynyho?’

‘And did you not retaliate by hanging Thomas Burdet, an innocent man?’

‘He was not innocent! On your orders, he maligned the Queen and members of her family!’

Clarence’s features were suddenly contorted into a barely recognisable mask of hatred. ‘No one could malign that Devil’s brood,’ he all but screamed. ‘Everyone knows that they indulge in the most extreme forms of all the black arts!’

The people in the hall were now avoiding one another’s eyes, but glancing furtively every now and then at the Duke of Gloucester, where he sat staring at the ground and biting his underlip. Only the foreign envoys and ambassadors looked on with interest at the unedifying spectacle before them, storing up all the details for their royal masters in their next dispatches.

There was a momentary lull in this exchange of insults, while the two protagonists paused to draw breath. Then, in a torrent of foam-flecked words, the King began reciting all Clarence’s many sins: his desertion to Warwick; his marriage to Warwick’s elder daughter, Isabel Neville, without his brother’s consent; his invocation of the statute of 1470 in order to lay claim to the throne; his attempt to marry Mary of Burgundy (a lady now safely the wife of Maximilian of Austria) until finally . . .

‘I could have forgiven you all this,’ the King roared, ‘but for your last, malicious, more dastardly treason!’

An air of expectancy hung over Westminster Hall. This, surely, must be the moment we had all been waiting for; the moment when we should at last learn the truth; the real reason for the Duke of Clarence’s indictment and trial. The charges which had been adduced so far were old tales: they did not account for the King’s sudden decision to rid himself of his brother. A few of those present might believe that Edward had genuinely reached the end of his tether, but not very many. Most of us felt that some new and so far undisclosed treachery, something that struck at the very heart of his right to the throne, would now be revealed.

But then, suddenly, it was all over: I never quite fathomed how. A flurry of half-sentences on the part of the King; a bewildered Duke of Buckingham pronouncing a verdict of ‘Guilty’; warders closing in on their prisoner, leading him away from the bar, and it was finished.