Death Be Pardoner To Me: The Life of George, Duke of Clarence (21 page)

Chapter 22

The one thing you are not doing, oh shades or ghosts or angels or whoever you are, those who are rippling the arras and flickering the flames beyond that which is natural and normal for this time of year and the wood which is burning, is asking me questions. Why are you not asking, Clarence, did you ever give up the desire to take the crown of England? So, as you are not asking it, I will say it for you and give you my honest answer: no. Even as the royal children came, one by one, even as the boy Edward arrived, I held on to my dream.

For a while the dream was within my grasp. I walked down to the Hall at Warwick where Ned paced before the hearth, where he turned as I approached, turned on scuffed heels from the pacing and stamping he had done. I saw the anger within him, well disguised but there, behind the beaming smile, the handclasp, the good wishes uttered for my state of health and I wondered if it were that obvious that I drank too much the night before. Damn his eyes, he looked fit and well and as if nothing had passed his lips but small ale and water!

“We greet thee well,” he said, as if he were in his own court and greeting his own courtiers, not prisoner of his brother and cousin, not confined to a castle by armed guards who were only too pleased, it seemed, to ally themselves with the Warwick cause.

I spoke with Ned as if indeed we were meeting in his court, as if we were equals, not king-turned-prisoner and duke-turned-possibly king. I was doing well until Warwick proposed a drink and I had a mazer handed to me before Peke could get the new instructions in place. The wine began the hammering in my head again and I found it hard to concentrate.

Ned admitted he had under-estimated our insurrection, the loyalty our cousin of Warwick could generate, admitted he had been laggardly in fighting back and avowed that had he done so, he would have won through, not been a prisoner. Of a surety he was full of confidence and I wondered what trick he had in mind.

He talked of the battle of Edgecote and my heart began to ache suddenly. I had put away the thought of those who died and now it had come back to assault me. Edgecote was a disastrous battle, 5000 dead. The thought of it, a battle which Warwick and I instigated, fought, won, cost 5000 lives. And the execution of two Woodvilles. I wondered if that too would come back to assault me at some time. Ear Rivers and his son John, beheaded on Warwick’s and my orders. I thought nothing of it at the time, caught up in the glory of battle, leaving behind me the sickening fear of dying, the feeling of blood draining from my face, the seeming inability to swing a battle axe or sword, the fear of losing control of my bowels, such was the intensity of the terror which swept over me. And then, in a moment, it had gone and in its place came a screaming joy at slashing and killing, at seeing men go down and be trampled by destriers and feet, at blocking a blow which would have taken my arm or my head from my body and in return taking an arm or almost a head from a body, seeking the weak points in armour, delighting in the gush and rush of blood. It was a time of fear and exhilaration, of kill or be killed for despite my banners and pennants, announcing who I was, there were those who would have taken me down and killed me without a second thought.

Edgecote. A living nightmare. I must have showed it, for Ned asked if all was well, revealing what appeared to be genuine concern. I excused myself on the grounds of too much drink and he sympathised. Of a surety my brother the king had indulged in many a night’s drinking session and appeared the following morning looking ten years older than he really was.

My brother the king’s detention did not go well. Warwick moved him first to Middleham and then to Pontefract but nothing went as it should. Nothing. We could not rule adequately in his name and we could not rule in our own name, for the country as a whole was not with us. We tried, I tried, the trick of bringing doubt on his birth, knowing even as I did so that it would hurt our lady mother but oh the glittering prize of the crown of England put that beyond my reasoning at the time! It did not work. The time was used for knight to set claim against knight, for uprisings, for problems which needed to be resolved. I did my best; history will show that, I did my best to mediate with problems, writing endless letters to try and resolve things, to be the calming influence. It all seemed hopeless.

I confess now to the flames leaping endlessly and silently in the hearth here in the Tower that the day Hastings, together with my brother of Gloucester and a huge armed escort, came to visit and rode away with my brother the king was a relief.

I recall standing with Warwick, recall the glowering look he wore and forbore to speak with him at that time. His dreams had just vanished with the armed men but then again, so had mine and mine were surely of a more elevated status than his, or were they? Did he seek to control the country through me? These are questions I did not ask at the time and it is now too late to ask of anyone, even if Warwick himself were not long dead on the battlefield, killed trying to flee, cut down by those boiling with the blood lust of battle which takes us all at the time. We see nothing but enemy, we feel nothing but the euphoria that battle brings. It is only when the battle ceases and we stand amid the dead and dying, the wounded and the grievously heartbroken, that the euphoria dies and leaves in its place the emptiness, the uselessness of what we have just done. Achievement? Count it as nothing.

I returned to Isobel, tried to resume as if life had not been disrupted by so many happenings, as if the crown had not been within my grasp and suddenly snatched from it. I made a reconciliation, of a kind, with my brother the king. I was aware of his seething anger, his need for retribution, for revenge, felt it in his demeanour when in my presence, or should that be when I was in his presence; after all he was king. Many of my problems with my brother arose from the fact that although part of me accepted he was king, another part saw him only as my brother of March and resented his authority over me. Foolish? Maybe. Natural? Very possibly. Many of my brother’s problems with me, I believe, arose from the fact he could not or would not indict me as a traitor at that time or order some kind of punishment, physical or financial, to give him back his dignity which had been sore troubled by being taken prisoner and confined under guard to the grounds of Warwick’s homes.

I discovered later that from the moment of my brother the king’s release from our captivity he began to shower my brother of Gloucester with honours, estates and political roles. I was then twenty years old, which means my brother of Gloucester was just seventeen years old and was Constable of England, among other things. Did I resent it? Of a surety I did. But I had cast my lot in with my cousin of Warwick and there I remained, knowing of my brother the king’s burning resentment but not realising how it would, eventually, bring about my total downfall and my incarceration here in the Tower. He had his revenge after all.

Should I here raise the spectre of the death of the hapless harmless Henry? Dare I walk that path? Who is to hear me if I do? Ah, memory, do not play me false, it is not yet time to talk of this, is it?

Mayhap it is. For I am speaking of my brother the king’s desire for revenge and in that desire, I sense and detect cruelty. Have I not said already that he is cruel, in that he holds me here without my knowing when the end will come or, even worse, how it will come? Let me then speak of the death of King Henry in passing. I knew of some of it but was not part of it, so really, truthfully, memory, this is not part of my life, is it? Only insofar as it concerns the two men I know as my brothers. But did that quiet king die by starvation, natural causes or by execution? The stories are mixed, the information scant, the final judgement known only to God and those directly involved. I give thanks to God I was not.

I know only this: my brother the king was cruel enough to order the execution of a rival king, of a surety he was. My brother of Gloucester was - now, the question – strong enough to ensure the order was carried out or weak enough to ensure the order was carried out? Would he have taken the stance that Edward was the rightful king or would he just obey because of his loyalty to the family, to his brother above all others?

I do not know. I will not know until I go to my just rewards and eventually find that harmless old man and ask him what happened right there in the Tower. Then, only then, will all be revealed.

Or will it?

Chapter 23

It was as if life proceeded on two levels: the top level was the life where George was doing his best to cope with a reduced income as the king took estates away from him and handed them out to others, rewarding this one and that for services and a second, lower level where he was still discussing with Warwick the need for a further uprising, even for civil war, in order to restore their positions in life. Dangerous games: in one way, troubling to the mind, for so much could and probably would go wrong; in another way, exciting for danger added a spice to life that might otherwise be missing. George often thought, as he sat through meetings, discussions, or his own courts, where petitioners came with problems relating to estates he still owned, that there was nothing quite like power to stimulate the senses. Ordering executions had to be the ultimate thrill of all, to take someone’s life, to render the family of the dead person homeless if he so chose: small people, he told himself, small people held in the palm of one hand, life and death my gift to dispense as I wish. Who needs to be king when you can do this as duke?

Occasionally a letter would arrive from Lady Cecily, advising, coercing, all but pleading with him to reconcile himself permanently with his brother the king, to end the ongoing breach and restore family harmony once more. It was tempting in some ways, but in other ways was an impossible dream. Too much had gone on between them and he was too much in thrall to Warwick to make any kind of move away from him now. Sometimes he answered the letters, mostly he burned them, along with his thoughts of reconciliation. It was appealing, he admitted that to himself, but it was also such a retrograde step when they had come so far. The heady days when he actually had control of his brother the king, actually had him in captivity, seemed like a very long time in the past but the thrill, the euphoria that such an act had given him, was still a very present memory.

But beneath all this ran a deeper thought, one he rarely allowed space, for it hurt too much when he did. It was a thought that sometimes surfaced during the moments of silence in Mass, a longing that had no name in his vocabulary but which was made up of an intense desire to return to Fotheringhay, to have his brothers with him, to have his lord father and lady mother back in overall control of the castle and of his life, to be able to romp with puppies and dogs, to ride where he wished, to hawk and hunt, to party and shed the responsibilities of being in control of so much property and so many people. I would not wish not to be married, he told himself in a moment of honesty, but I would do without all the responsibilities that go with it, if I could.

Unfortunately it was not to be. There was no going back on anything; family, commitments, steps taken, battles fought, taking a king prisoner – some things were so huge, so problematical, that they could not be talked away by anyone.

He walked out of the chapel with Warwick at his side, sensing the rising excitement in his cousin.

“This time, George, this time we take victory! I promise you, we have enough backing to make the honours ours!”

George silently doubted it, for somewhere deep in his mind he knew with a certainty that nothing was as simple or straightforward as Warwick wanted it to be. At times he felt his cousin was a master tactician, other times he thought he over-simplified everything.

Just as at times I like him, other times I don’t, he thought. Can I not make up my mind once and for all about this man? Ever does his character slip and slide away from me. Of a surety he is a complex man but are we not all complex people really? Do we not have many roles to play in our lives? But somehow, in some way, he has more roles to play than others I could think of. I wish –

Before the thought
I trusted him
could be brought into words, Warwick’s secretary was there, holding a sheaf of paper and wearing an anxious look. The work had begun, even before they had touched their first food of the day.

“George, we can count on-” Warwick was going over the papers, checking names, anxiously seeking confirmation. I know, thought George, we’ve been over this countless times. “Sir Robert Welles, for one,” Warwick continued.

Why tell me the obvious? George’s thoughts ran on. The man wears my livery, takes his orders from me. I trust him more…

Sometimes he had to guard his thoughts. Sometimes they were so strong that they threatened to appear as expressions which anyone could read and that could be dangerous. In any event, he trusted his cousin, didn’t he? He did, didn’t he? Warwick was not a man to cross at any time, but particularly now, when he was planning an insurrection, when all was so tenuous, when plans were so fluid.

A bitter February wind rattled the shutters and caused a draught to ripple around the room. George pulled his mantle closer around him and sighed, wishing for warmer weather and more congenial company. Christmas, the last time he had felt really relaxed and happy, had been spent with his wife with only occasional visits to court to ensure Ned had not forgotten his existence. He limited those visits, knowing full well that his brother the king still burned with resentment and was looking for a way of taking revenge. Did Ned know that he was spending time with Warwick? Comments had been made, on surface off hand but those who knew the king well would take them as commands, that the two should not be together anywhere at any time. As usual George ignored the commands and continued to meet with Warwick, the better to discuss the insurrection and those who were likely to support them, but not very often. Spies were everywhere, surely some of the meetings would be reported but perhaps not all. Sometimes you had to trust and sometimes you had to take chances. What am I gambling with here, George had asked himself? My future, my life, my livelihood? Would Ned make Isobel a widow so soon or would family loyalties hold his hand? Whatever, it is making life more interesting, more challenging. I need much more than the occasional oyer and terminer! I need more than court chatter and gossip and I need more than the crumbs thrown from my brother’s table. Surely I am entitled to more, am I not?