Georgette Heyer (9 page)

‘The King is not wood. It is treason to say so!’ Harry said.

‘Who cares? If he headed all who do say so there wouldn’t be many people left!’ retorted Thomas. ‘Everyone knows you are one of his lovelings, but you can’t deny that he does the strangest things! And Father said, because I heard him, that if he doesn’t take heed those Cheshire archers of his will be his bane, so insolent and oppressive as they are!’

Harry sat up. ‘Father said that?’

‘Well, something like it!’

‘Oh!’ said Harry, lying down again.

‘What archers?’ asked John.

‘His bodyguard,’ replied Thomas. ‘Lusty rogues, full of bobance, swaggering about with the King’s badge of the White Hart on their jacks, and doing as they list. Cousin Richard goes nowhere without them.’ He rolled over on to his stomach, and grinned at John. ‘Have you heard about Humfrey? He’s going to be a scholar! Does
your
tutor tell Father you are the aptest pupil he ever had? Ours doesn’t, and I’ll swear Richard Beauchamp’s never told my lord of Warwick so, either!’

‘Oh, how is Richard?’ John asked. ‘Do you see him still?’

‘Sometimes.’ Harry’s voice sounded as though he did not wish to say more.

‘I heard that my lord of Warwick took it ill when Uncle John Beaufort was made Earl of Somerset. True?’

‘Yes, I think. He doesn’t hold by Lancaster now, at all events. Ask Thomas! He knows all the scullions’ janglery!’

‘Scullions’ janglery! You know as well as I do that the old Lords Appellant are got together again!’

‘Not Father?’ John exclaimed.

‘No, not him, and not Nottingham either. But Uncle Gloucester, and Arundel, and old Warwick are imagining mischief, because they can’t stomach the Hollands and Edward of Rutland ordering all as they list. Uncle York was wringing his hands over it the other day – you know his way!’

‘Enough!’ Harry jumped up, and held out his hands for John to grasp. ‘On your feet, little John! I can still throw you: can you outpace me yet? I’ll give you fifty paces scope-law, and reach the postern before you!’

4

Within the month events proved that Thomas had been right. Piecing it together as well as they could, the lordings gathered that the three original Lords Appellant, Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick, had been meeting in secret to imagine treason. There were those who would have told the lordings that treason there was none, but only the long bosomed-up rancour of the King against those who had once humiliated him.

He bade his uncle of Gloucester and my lords of Arundel and Warwick to a feast at Westminster: Herod’s feast it was afterwards called. Only my lord of Warwick obeyed that summons and he was put speedily under arrest. My lord of Gloucester sent a message from Pleshy, begging to be excused because he was unhale. My lord of Arundel sent no excuse, but shut himself up in his castle at Reigate, where he would have remained had not his brother, the Archbishop, persuaded him to render himself up. The King swore to the Archbishop, by St John the Baptist, that no ill should befall my lord; but how little store the Earl set by this oath was seen in the contemptuous smile with which he greeted those who arrested him. He was hurried away to Carisbrooke; and hardly was it done than Master Whittington, the Mayor of London, received orders to call out the trainbands. Placing himself at their head, the King rode into Essex that same evening, to the royal palace of Havering Bower. With him went the Steward of his Household, Sir Thomas Percy; Thomas Mowbray, my lord of Nottingham, the Captain of Calais; and the King’s half-brother, the Earl of Huntingdon. They rested the night at Havering Bower, and set out for Pleshy early next morning. It was a lovely summer’s day, with a haze promising later heat. The castle stood on a mound, overlooking the Essex countryside, with a great moat surrounding it. Swans glided on the water; and every now and then widening circles betrayed where a fish had risen. My lord of Gloucester received his nephew in the inner bailey, and made obeisance, while his lady, his daughters, his young son Humfrey, and all his household stood uneasily behind him. The hour was Prime, and the chapel bell was ringing: my lord was about to hear Mass.

‘Bel oncle, we will go to church together, for you are my prisoner,’ the King said. Then, as my lord stood rooted, and my lady’s breath rattled in her throat, he said, as though he found the incident amusing: ‘I think this will be the better for both of us.’

My lord’s eyes searched amongst the King’s retinue, but met only the eyes of his enemies. Dry-lipped, he said: ‘Very dread sire, I am unhale!’

The King smiled.

‘Grace!’ my lord said, the word wrenched out of him. ‘Give me grace, my liege!’

‘Yea, such grace as was given to my tutor Sir Simon Burley, Bel oncle!’ the King said, still smiling.

Then he went into the chapel, all following him; and when he had heard Mass he rode away to London, with his uncle in his train. But at Stratford he parted from him, with never a word or a backward look. My lord was surrounded by men in blue-and-tawny, with the White Lion of Mowbray on their sleeves; and he saw beyond them only the Crescent of the Percy badge embroidered on russet liveries. My lord of Nottingham had ridden on with the King, but Sir Thomas Percy’s hand was on Gloucester’s bridle. ‘Come, my lord!’ he said, the burr in his speech making his voice sound harsh. ‘We are for Calais!’

5

Within an hour of the King’s return to Westminster, M. de Guyenne swept into his presence. He was attended by an ominously large company: the King’s servants found Lancaster blue-and-white jostling royal scarlet, no man’s hand far from his basilard. But presently M. de Guyenne came out of the King’s closet with his nephew, and it was seen that the King’s arm was linked in his, and that the King was laughing.

Edmund of York, arriving from King’s Langley, made, not for Westminster, but for the inn in quiet Holborn which M. de Guyenne rented from my lord Bishop of Ely. He found his brother in the herber, pacing under the trees with my lord of Derby, and broke in on their discourse, demanding to know what fate had befallen Thomas of Woodstock, their brother of Gloucester.

‘He is in ward, in Calais,’ M. de Guyenne answered.

‘I told you! I told you!’ Edmund cried, wringing his hands. ‘Christ have him in keeping! What does Richard mean to do with him?’

‘He says, no harm. He will bring him to trial when an end has been made of Arundel.’

‘He will have his head!’

‘He dare not.’

‘You will see.’ Edmund rounded on my lord of Derby. ‘Was this your doing, rashhead? Dog eats not dog, Harry of Bolingbroke!’

‘As God sees me, it was not done with my knowledge or by my counsel!’

‘I have seen the King,’ M. de Guyenne interposed.

‘What said he?’

M. de Guyenne shrugged. ‘Fair words.’

‘God’s love, will you trust to them?’

‘No, but to my own power! Let Thomas repent him awhile that he dabbled in treason!’

‘He is steeped in treason!’ Edmund exclaimed. ‘Will you head Arundel, and spare Thomas? Will Richard?’

‘Richard will do as he must. I am Steward of England, and so he will find when Thomas is brought to his assize!’

But Edmund shuddered, and said over and over again: ‘He is shent, I tell you! He is shent!’

Before my lords of Arundel and Warwick were brought to trial, John was at Framlingham again, with his sisters to bear him company. Blanche, at five, reminded all who saw her of her mother. She was pretty, and had a gentle disposition, with none of the self-will that characterised Philippa, still tottering in leading-strings. The Countess Marshal took only a cursory interest in either, but she was glad to see John again. She shook her head over Gloucester’s arrest, but she refused to take it seriously. ‘Mark me if this windmill dwindles not into a nutcrack!’ she said. ‘Kings’ sons have nothing to do with doom’s carts; and as for Arundel, God shield you, my grandson of Nottingham is wedded to his daughter! Let it sleep! Wind blows chaff away, my child!’

But in September, when my lord of Arundel was brought to his assize, the news that reached Framlingham was disturbing. John’s nights were witch-ridden, not because he cared whether Arundel lived or died, but because Father, and Bel sire, and Cousin Richard were all demeaning themselves in a way that made them seem like kindless strangers. Arundel was well liked by the citizens of London, and when he was hailed before his judges the King’s Cheshiremen had to draw their bows on an angry mob. Bel sire, presiding at the trial, and Father, amongst my lord’s peers, had each of them flung fierce words at Arundel, who stood proudly arrayed in scarlet before them, and threw back word for word. He relied for his defence on the pardon granted him years before; and when Bel sire said: ‘The faithful Commons have revoked it, villain!’ he answered, swift as the thrust of his dagger: ‘The faithful Commons are not here!’

There was never any hope for him. He was condemned to die a traitor’s death – commuted, of course, to plain heading – and was led out at once. He was executed on Tower Hill, and he made a good end. Some said that his son-in-law, Nottingham, bound his eyes, but that was untrue: the Earl Marshal raised no hand to save him, but he was not present at his passing. Delicacy may have kept him away; it did not stop him snatching at the dead Arundel’s possessions as soon as the breath was out of his body. He and the Hollands picked over the bones between them, the Earl of Huntingdon obtaining the wardship of Arundel’s children, young Thomas Fitzalan and his sister Margaret.

Hard upon the heels of Arundel’s death came the arraignment of my lords of Warwick and Cobham. This, thought John, was the worst of all, for although my lord Cobham, eighty years old and as brisk as a bee, cheerfully defied his judges, Warwick cast himself at the King’s feet, weeping, and imploring mercy. The King banished him and old Cobham to the Isle of Man, and confiscated their estates. Never had John been so glad to be at Framlingham, where no chance could bring him face to face with Richard Beauchamp! It was importable to picture Richard’s humiliation: had it been Father who had so abased himself could he, or Harry, or Thomas have met the eyes of any man again?

On the day of Arundel’s heading, my lord of Nottingham, Captain of Calais, was ordered to bring the Duke of Gloucester before the Parliament. He answered that my lord Duke had died at Calais, of an accesse; but he was able to present to the King my lord’s confession of his guilt, made by him to Sir William Rickhill, a justice of the Common Pleas, who had been transported to Calais to receive it. The confession was read in Parliament, but Sir William was not called upon to give his evidence. My lord Duke was pronounced to have been guilty of treason; his estates were confiscated; his lady fled to sanctuary with her daughters; and the King took young Humfrey of Gloucester into his Household.

Archbishop Arundel was also impeached; and when he would have replied to the charges brought against him, the King hushed him. The King told him privately that it would be well for him to leave the country for a space; and when the Archbishop replied that where he had been born he would also die Richard soothed him, promising that while he lived no other prelate should sit on the archiepiscopal throne. Arundel, knowing that sentence of banishment was being prepared, allowed his haughty temper to guide him; and on the eve of his departure for Rome sought an interview with his liege-lord, and set him upon the hone. It was whispered behind the hand at Westminster that my lord Archbishop addressed the King for half an hour without once checking for a word. He swept out of the chamber without giving the King time to make an answer. He betook himself to Pope Boniface, but the Holy Father had his own troubles, and however much he might sympathise with his austere son he was not in a position to make an enemy of any Christian monarch. King Richard supported Rome, but he seemed to be a wayward man, quite likely to transfer his allegiance to the rival Pope at Avignon on small provocation. The Holy Father translated Arundel to St Andrews, and obligingly appointed King Richard’s own choice to Canterbury.

Before September was out, the King gave the world something fresh to gape at. He said that those who were of his own blood ought to be elevated above their peers, and in one swoop created what his lieges soon derisively dubbed his Duketti. Edward of Rutland became Duke of Aumâle; my lord of Derby was Duke of Hereford, in his dead wife’s right; the Hollands, Huntingdon and his nephew of Kent, were Dukes of Exeter and Surrey; and the Countess Marshal was made Duchess of Norfolk for life. At the same time, her grandson, my lord of Nottingham, who had served the King so well, became Duke of Norfolk. Uncle John Beaufort was raised to the degree of a Marquis, a title strange to English ears; Lord Neville of Raby was made Earl of Westmoreland; my lord of Northumberland’s brother, Sir Thomas Percy, was rewarded for his services with the Earldom of Worcester; and the King’s friends, Thomas Despenser and William Scrope of Bolton, were elevated, to most men’s disgust, to be earls of Gloucester and of Wiltshire.

Notwithstanding these marks of the King’s favour, two of the Duketti sought instant measures of self-protection. Before the new titles had been announced, the faithful Commons were begging the King to declare that my lords of Derby and Nottingham had been innocent of malice in their association with Gloucester, Arundel and Warwick of ten years ago. The King, still enjoying his private jest, smiled upon them both, and said that he would himself vouch for their loyalty.

6

At Ely House, M. de Guyenne sat gripping the arms of his chair. His robe fell in folds about his spare frame, and lay in a pool of velvet round his feet. He was beginning to look a little frail, parchment-skinned, but his eyes were as bright as a hawk’s under his gathered brows. ‘How did Thomas die?’ he asked harshly.