Queen of Trial and Sorrow (15 page)

My family became frantic as the days went by with no sign of the quarrel being resolved.  My fall from favor was visited upon them too, so that people who had sought their patronage and showered them with gifts and compliments now felt free to snub them.  Furthermore, courtiers began to push forth an attractive daughter or niece in the belief that the way to preferment lay through the king’s bed, as if the estrangement between us were more or less permanent

……….

I was dressed in the blue of royal mourning when I welcomed Anthony back to court.  It could so easily have been him, and he
was
the dearest of my brothers.  A gentle and honorable man, he had little interest in politics, preferring to devote himself to study and promotion of the arts, though he did his duty diligently when Edward called upon him.  Even the Wydevilles’ most virulent enemies could find little to fault in Anthony. 

My mother came to court to lend her pleas to my family’s.  Before Warwick’s rebellion she had been a plump but still attractive woman, and now lines of sorrow were etched on her face making her look old beyond her years.  My own grief was deep.  What must it be like to lose a beloved husband and son in one foul blow? 

“Bess, this has to stop,” she said firmly.  “You have to mend this quarrel.”

“Haven’t you heard the gossip?  The king has withdrawn from my bed and taken another.  And at such a time!”

“Well, did you expect him to remain faithful forever?” she demanded, as if his infidelity was no more than a lapse in table manners.  “It is the way of some men.  It means nothing.”

“I thought he loved me!”

“Come, now.  I didn’t raise a fool.  If he loves you, a dozen doxies in his bed aren’t going to change that.  But whether he does or not is unimportant.  What is important is that you are the queen.  You have power.  Mistresses can have power too, if they’re clever, sometimes more power than the wife.  Is that what you want?  To relinquish your place to Mistress Howard?”

“He wouldn’t do that!”

“Wouldn’t he?  He is able to indulge the baser side of his nature with a clear conscience by telling himself that you have driven him to it.  Few things are less attractive to a man than a nagging wife.  What he wants, what he needs at the end of a day filled with the problems and burdens of his high office, is a compliant woman with welcoming arms and if you are unwilling to assume the role no doubt Mistress Howard is.  Better win him back, Bess, before she gets a firm grip on his heart.”

I shook my head, whether in negation or denial, even I didn’t know. 

“I know how difficult it is for you to hear this but it had to be said,” she went on.  “Be sensible, Bess.  You’re lucky.  You have a good marriage and a good husband.  Don’t let your pride ruin that.  I understand your need for revenge.  I want that too.  But, my dear, you need to bear the king a son.  With a son, no one will be able to challenge you, and Clarence will be displaced in the succession.  Let that be your revenge.  With a son, your position will be more secure, so will your family’s and so will Edward’s.”

Her words had the desired effect.  I had been a fool; I had lost sight of what was important, which was to mend matters with Edward.  I really had no choice.

That night I selected a nightgown of white lawn edged in lace, as gossamer thin as a spider’s web.  I perfumed my wrists and breast with my favorite lavender essence and had my hair brushed until it shone, tumbling down my back in a silvery cascade.  I left it loose but covered by a concealing veil.  Donning a dark crimson bed robe, I chose two of my ladies to accompany me and set out for the king’s chambers.  With what trepidation can be imagined.   My heart was thudding with almost painful intensity, and I’m not sure if it was due to the anticipation of a passionate reunion or fear of being rejected.

Looking as impassive as always, the guards outside the king’s apartment uncrossed their halberds and let me through.  I entered the presence chamber, which was as usual crowded with the king’s gentlemen and court satellites, whiling away their time in idle pursuits.  Conversations died away as though a door had been closed.  Without looking round to see who was there I made straight for the bedchamber, and was almost there when Sir Thomas St. Leger stepped in front of me and bowed.  “Madam, may I be of assistance?”

“Thank you, no,” I said curtly.  “Kindly step aside, Sir Thomas.”

After a brief hesitation to consider the wisdom of obedience, he said: “Madam, I entreat you – ”

I didn’t let him finish.  “Get out of my way!”

It was a breach of protocol, of course.  If he was in need of connubial congress the king went to the queen; the queen never went to the king unless she was summoned.  And there was good reason for that as I discovered when the door was flung open.

She was there, as I had expected.  The room was dimly lit except where they sat, in a warm glow from candles and a blazing fire.  They were both fully dressed, sitting at opposite sides of a small table, engrossed in a game of chess.  How painful it was to see them thus!  It would have been easier to bear, I think, had I caught him mounting the bitch on the great bed than sitting there doing nothing but
enjoying her company!

She glanced over her shoulder at me, her great blue eyes growing bigger and rounder, before she rose and sank into a low curtsy, head bowed.

“Get out,” I said, not trusting myself to say more, and believing Edward to be too courteous to humiliate me by countermanding my order. 

She lifted her head to glance his way.  He nodded wordlessly and she rose to curtsy to him.  He kissed the creature’s hand and let it go.  She walked past me with her eyes downcast and went out.

The king lifted a brow at me.  “This is a surprise, Madam.  I don’t recall sending for you,” he said, without a trace of guilt or remorse in his voice or on his handsome face. He was speaking to me with the cold courtesy he used to such as Clarence, a tone that suggested he would bear with me but for how much longer was anyone’s guess.

Sweeping forward, I went to my knees, abject, shuddering with the violence of my emotions, my head in his lap, my arms around his legs.  Too proud, they said of me, but it really required no humbling of pride on my part, for I loved him, wanted him, ached for him, and the knowledge that he had turned for solace to another woman was a dagger in my heart.  I abased myself and didn’t care.

“Forgive me, dear lord,” I murmured into his silk clad thighs. “I know I was wrong.  I will do as you wish in all things.  But forgive me, I beg you.  I cannot bear your displeasure.”

“Here, Bess.” He urged me up and onto his lap, holding me against his broad chest, where I could feel the solid strength of him and smell his familiar scent.

We just held each other for a while in the embracing candlelight and then he said:   “Sweetheart, I am sorry we quarreled.  I am even more sorry that I cannot give you this one thing.  You have justice on your side, I freely admit it.  But if you and I are to be safe, if our children are to be safe, if my people are to be safe, I must put an end to these wars.  I am resolved upon it.  Do you understand?”

I nodded with a deep sigh and he urged me off his lap.

“Take off your robe.  Let me look at you.” 

As I rose, I removed my veil, shook my hair free and shed the bed robe.  Loosely tied, my nightgown was slipping off one shoulder.  He reached out a hand and tugged on the drawstring to complete the process, and I was naked, my garments puddled at my feet.  His eyes were on me, moving over my body as palpable as a caress. 

I had prided myself that I could influence him, that I could twist him around my little finger, but he only let me think he was indulging me when my wants and his did not collide.  Keep the wife sweet and compliant!  The movements between a man and a woman are not so much a dance as a war, and the man has all the advantages, all the power; the woman is armed with nothing but her wiles – a not insignificant weapon if she knows how to use them.  In war it is never good strategy to let passion override calculation.

So it was that when the traitors came to Westminster, I had to hold out my hand to each man in turn.  I had to suffer their stiff lips upon my fingers and say without a tremor: “Welcome back to court, my lords,” to the murderers of my father and brother.  I had to sit there, maintaining a calm and dignified demeanor, while Edward spoke to the trio, because I wasn’t a person; I was a symbol, and symbols didn’t feel grief and hatred.

By his example Edward showed the court that no matter how they felt about the business they were expected to treat Warwick with courtesy.  But I saw the fleeting look in his eyes, like the shadow of an assassin on the wall. 
Whom can a prince trust?

My lord the king had one enormous flaw: it was his inability to judge men, to expect the worst of them.

Within half a year of the reconciliation, Warwick rebelled again. But this time Edward’s eyes were open and he didn’t fall into their trap.  Manifesting the qualities of speed and decisiveness that invariably attended his campaigns and made him the greatest military man of our time, he annihilated Warwick’s forces in a battle popularly called ‘Lose-coat field’.

If he had any lingering doubts about the treachery of his brother and cousin, they were entirely and forever destroyed when a small wooden box full of letters was put into his hands.  It had been found among the possessions of a dead rebel, a man chased down and killed who was identified as a servant of Lord Welles, one of Warwick’s puppets.  

The letters, as he told me later, were an appalling litany of betrayal, revealing the composition of the conspiracy from the time one of Clarence’s chaplains had approached Lord Welles to the final letter informing him they would meet him in Leicester with twenty thousand men, and making clear that this time the object was not to take Edward captive but to ‘be rid of’ him and crown Clarence.  Such treachery from his brother was unfathomable to me. In the case of his first treason, one could perhaps argue that he had succumbed to the bribe of marriage to Isabel Neville, but having obtained forgiveness made his second treason all the more perfidious. 

When Edward told me of this, I wanted to comfort him as I would one of my children when they were hurt, but I knew he would have rejected it; there never was any comforting Edward.  He was the king.  If he suffered, he suffered alone. 
Always show a brave face to the world.

Although heads fell in the wake of the rebellion, Edward was as usual magnanimous with his pardon, but the real culprits collected their wives and little Anne Neville and took to their heels. The king’s agents chased them as far as Exeter where they seized a dozen ships.   They were last seen off Beachy Head running into a squall. 

On board ship during a vicious storm, fired upon by cannon from Calais, Isabel Neville, Warwick’s daughter and Clarence’s wife, gave birth to a dead baby.  I received this news with mixed feelings.  It was hard for any woman not to sympathize with the young duchess, but I was awfully glad there was as yet no little Clarence to plague us in our later years.  Anyway, it was her father and husband to blame: dragging her on that perilous journey when her pregnancy was so far advanced.  Denied entry to Calais – fired upon, in fact – afraid to land in France without a safe-conduct, hounded by Lord Howard’s fleet, they had cruised about aimlessly until supplies ran low, when they had sailed up the Seine to Harfleur, and into the web of the spider-king, Louis of France – so called because he sat in darkened corners like a huge black spider, weaving webs of deceit and lies to entangle his fellow princes.

“I don’t know why I didn’t foresee this,” Edward was saying, as he entered my solar and waved us back to our seats.   

He was looking very fit and tanned having spent the summer doing what he could to secure the realm.  Not for one moment did he doubt that Warwick would return as soon as the means to do so were at hand.  Trust Louis to supply the means.

The sheriffs had been instructed to make certain the beacons were in order and manned every hour of the day and night.  Commissions of array were sent into the southwestern counties and Edward made a personal tour of Kent to make sure all was secure there.  The Cinque Ports had a long and close association with Warwick, who had been warden for many years.  This office was now given to the Earl of Arundel, and Dover Castle was handed over to Sir John Scott.

But more than anything else he was relying on a quite substantial navy.  Lord Howard already had a fleet keeping the Narrow Sea free of pirates, and he joined my brother Anthony, now Earl Rivers since my father’s death, with squadrons from Southampton and Sandwich.  Further, Warwick’s own ships were acquired, and all joined a Burgundian fleet to blockade the mouth of the Seine and prevent Warwick breaking out, or to capture him if he succeeded in doing so.  To keep tedium at bay, they created a little havoc by seizing fishing boats and burning houses on the French coast. 

“Because,” Lord Hastings replied, “it’s simply unimaginable.”

They were both light-hearted men; the gravity of their expressions told me that something truly awful had happened.  I raised my brows enquiringly.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Edward began.  We were all so still and silent I could hear the patter of rain against the windowpanes.  “Louis has done the impossible.  He has persuaded my cousin of Warwick and Margaret of Anjou to join their hands in amity.” There was a chorus of outrage and amazement.  He had to wait for it to diminish before continuing:  “The pact is not without cost.  Proud Warwick had to spend a full fifteen minutes on his knees begging Margaret’s forgiveness for past errors before she condescended to give him her hand.”

It gave me a small degree of pleasure to picture Warwick in my mind, a fat juicy fly walking willingly into Louis’ web, and then kneeling before the woman he called ‘the Bitch of Anjou’.  It must have been the most humiliating moment of his life.

Shaking his shaggy curls, Lord Hastings said: “Truly, one has to admire Louis as a master of negotiation and manipulation.”

I found myself thinking with astonishing detachment that it was in fact a far better plan than the last, which was to depose Edward and crown Clarence.  The people would never have accepted Clarence, whereas they still had a soft spot for Daft Harry, who could be controlled even if his wife could not. 

The fire grate being cold and empty, Edward leaned against the mantel.  A signal to a servant brought him a cup of wine.  News of the bizarre pact had created a buzz of consternation among us, but Edward, having had time to absorb the news, was as calm as ever. 

“It can’t succeed,” Alice Fogge said, her needle hovering over a pool of fabric in her lap.  “They’re fools if they think it can.  Only one is going to come well out of this business and that’s Louis.”

“And your Grace,” I said with a smile that brought a fleeting smile in return.  With luck, he would be rid of a whole slew of enemies, along with an unnatural brother whose demise would cause the world to smell sweeter. 

“Lady Alice is right,” Edward said.  “Whether this bizarre alliance flourishes or fails, Louis won’t lose.  As to the other two, Margaret and Warwick, in the unlikely event that they win they’ll be at each other’s throats like a pair of fighting cocks.  It can’t possibly succeed.  Warwick is deluding himself if he believes he can work amicably with Lancaster.”

“He has a marvelous facility for seeing only those things that suit his purposes.  He is a master of self-delusion,” Hastings said sourly.

“But Margaret will have no such delusions.  I’ll wager she’s already planning how to get rid of him once he’s no longer needed.”   

“And a bloody vengeance it will be,” Lady Alice pronounced ominously.  

She could not be allowed to ravage England again as she had in ’61 when, on the promise of Berwick and unlimited plunder south of the Trent in lieu of wages, ten thousand Scots joined her army as it marched south.  Until that time I had admired her as a strong and courageous woman, but it was beyond my understanding how anyone could in good conscience follow a queen who had brought into England an invading army, or give their loyalty to a king who committed the most heinous treason against his own realm. For in condoning Margaret’s actions, that was what Henry had done.

In the intervening years I doubt she had ever given up hope.  She would have seen Edward’s assumption of the throne as some kind of Divine Error that had to be put right before the world could continue on its proper course.  Attainders could be reversed, kings could be uncrowned, princes could be disinherited at the stroke of a pen, triumph could turn to disaster so quickly it made one’s head spin.  Look at Towton.  They had the greater numbers, they were in friendly territory and they were fighting for England’s consecrated king.  But it wasn’t enough.  God did not favor them.

In those years her son had grown from boyhood to young manhood, and fed himself on blood-soaked dreams and furious boasts.  He was reported to have said that when Edward of York fell into his hands he would cut off his head, ‘but not with an axe or sword.  I’ll have him tied down on his back, so I can look into his eyes as I cut through his neck with a rusty saw, or perhaps with a small knife, a little bit at a time’.   

My hand was steady and my face serene. 
Always show a brave face to the world. 
But my heart quailed at the thought of Margaret and her terrible son returning to England. 

In gratitude for all his help, the house of Lancaster would forgive Warwick his past transgressions and allow him the mastery of England under Henry that he was unable to obtain under Edward – at least for as long as Margaret let him live.  For his reward Louis was to have all the help England could give him in making war against the Duke of Burgundy and if he were successful Warwick would be gifted with Holland and Zeeland.  Henry would have his crown back.  And since such matters were best cemented with a marriage, Warwick would preserve his ambition of having a daughter as queen by the marriage of his daughter Anne to Margaret’s son, Edward of Lancaster.

But what of George of Clarence?   What, in the Lancaster-Warwick vision of the future, was he to get out of betraying his mother’s blood?  Nothing.  He was overlooked, cast aside like a shoe that no longer fits.  No, that’s not quite accurate.  He wanted to be King of England but they would only let him be Duke of York.  That is, providing his elder brother was no more, as he held that title.  Oh yes, and he was to be second in line for the throne, after Margaret’s son, quite a large step down from being
first
in a Yorkist kingdom.    

We had a rare visit from the Duchess of York who, along with Richard of Gloucester, persuaded the king that now was the time to tempt Clarence back into the family fold, as it certainly wasn’t in his interests to see Lancaster restored.  Edward agreed, reluctantly, swearing he would never trust his brother again, but he agreed.

Only I knew that my sunny hearted husband was depressed as we awaited the latest word from the continent.  After all he had done, the late nights, the personal attention when he would rather have been out hunting, concluding favorable treaties with other nations in order to improve trade, increase prosperity and reestablish English supremacy abroad, after so much hard work for what amounted to a pittance in wages, and believing for a while that he had succeeded until rebellions began to spring up like flares from marsh gases; all of it useless, his youth wasted, because of one man’s ambition.

One day he said to me: “I had a dream, Bess.  I was in the midst of battle, my sword raised to strike someone down, and I realized it was George and he looked at me so piteously…” His head was down, his elbows resting on his knees, hands dangling between. 

“Did your sword fall?”

“No, it could never have done.  Not even in a dream could I have slain my own brother.  But I awoke fearful and trembling.”

“He would not hesitate.”

I was pregnant again, the babe due in November.  So it began again, the waiting, the discomforts and, worst of all, the agony of not knowing the sex of the child, worse each time.  I began to pray most earnestly for a boy, entreating the Virgin Mother and St. Elizabeth, mother of the Baptist, whose special care is pregnant women.  I exhorted my ladies to do likewise.  The court was admonished to pray only for a safe delivery for both mother and child.  Edward said publicly that it didn’t matter; we would have our son in God’s own time.  But I doubt even he could discipline his mind against the hope.  And of course it mattered.  It mattered to
me!
  He wasn’t the one who was blamed for producing girls.  A strapping lad was the product of mighty loins, but a failure of any kind was always the fault of the wife.  I knew what they were saying about me in the dirty streets of London, in the hovels of forest and weald, in the fens and the Yorkshire moors and all along the rocky shore, in religious houses and castles, manors and tenements, markets and taverns and the halls of Westminster: Of what use is she if she can’t even give us a prince?

Whenever Edward became depressed I would take his hand and lay it on my belly so he could feel our child moving.  This time it would be a boy, I would assure him, so please Our Lord.

That summer Queen Charlotte had given the forty-eight year-old Louis a son.  It was an event that interrupted the talks with Warwick and Margaret while a weeklong holiday was observed.  All over France, as we heard, in every church and religious house, the bells rang out in a joyous carillon, and in taverns and inns and parlors, the people dutifully and thankfully raised their cups to drink to the king and queen and the little prince who had been born to them.  Even Edward was moved to send a congratulatory letter.

The prayer went winging through my mind a hundred times a day: Dear God, this time let it be a boy.  Now, with Lancaster raising its diseased head again, it was more imperative than ever.

A lengthening rectangle of light lay on the floor, inching toward the corner of a rug.  I had the odd sense that when the light touched, the rug would begin to smolder and burst into flame.