Queen of Trial and Sorrow (18 page)

He called the girls his flowers.  Elizabeth was his rosebud, Mary his violet, quiet and shy, Cecily his myrtle, rioting over everything.  When we were private he would let them romp over him, like puppies with their dam, or ride on his shoulders, or swing from his arms.  He would sit on the floor, and Bessie would stand behind, curl her arms around him and press her little face into his neck; Cecily would be squirming in his lap and Mary would sit quietly at his side under his encircling arm. Yet they were not altogether without discipline.  They were being trained to be queens.  Mary might have to be given to the church, as she was a quiet, serious child.  Unless there were more?

But his son, he had said, although he would be equally cherished, would be taught from the cradle what it meant to be king.  He wouldn’t be left to struggle to learn the rudiments of kingship as his father had been.  He would serve an apprenticeship under the best teachers and the best advisers, so that when his time came he would be enriched by a thorough grounding in his craft.  And no one must be allowed to forget that he was a king in the making, not even his papa.

I rose and went over to the cradle in my bare feet.  He was sleeping restlessly, making sucking motions with his lips.  Soon he would awaken hungry, but the wet nurse was already installed, dozing by the fire, mouth slightly ajar, making a small scraping sound with every exhalation of breath.  I pushed a finger against his tiny hand and it opened and closed reflexively, clinging to me, clinging in such a way that it wrenched my heart.  “Your papa will be here soon,” I whispered, and I believed it.

Eventually I slept and awoke still tired and in low spirits.  I could hear the sound of the children playing in the hall and I glanced at the window.  The shutters were open showing monochrome gray and panes sheeted with rain.  Beside the fire little Ned guzzled greedily at a big bare breast.     

“Let the children come in now,” I said wearily, after having eaten a little.  The baby was placed in my arms, warm and flatulent and smelling of milk.  Lady Scrope moved close to the bed to stroke a finger along his chubby cheek in what would have been perceived as a tender gesture in anyone but her.  “Such a pity his father isn’t here to see him,” she murmured, lest I forget for a moment.

At this blatant hypocrisy, I looked at her, my eyes and voice hard.  “He will be here soon.  Count on it.  Tell your master his days are short.”

“Do you think so?” She gave me a smile that set my teeth on edge.  “What I hear is that Duke Charles has agreed to bestow a pension of five hundred crowns a month on him to defray his expenses, but has refused to receive him.”

I was devastated by this news as she intended me to be.  Without Charles’ help Edward would be unable to get home.  It meant that his stay in Burgundy would be prolonged, as would our stay in sanctuary. 

My girls trooped in, followed by the boys.  Elizabeth led the way like a hen with her chicks, and came to the bedside to view the one all the fuss was about.

“I like him,” she pronounced gravely after a protracted viewing.  “I’ll help you take care of him, Mama.”

“He’s too widdle to play with,” Mary said, disappointed.

Cecily gurgled something unintelligible and held up her arms to be picked up for a better view.  Anne obliged, but after a quick glance at the little face in all the white swaddling, she fixed her attention and a chubby fist on one of the bright things adorning her aunt’s headdress.

Thomas and Richard showed proper deference by kissing the little hand, and then got into a shoving match.

When they had all trooped out I told my mother what the Scrope woman had said.   “When will we be free of this place?” I asked her, tears threatening.

“This?” she said with an airy wave around the abbot’s bedchamber.  “This is just a bad dream.  It will pass when the sun rises again.”

She made me smile.

Since Warwick had restored order in the city, my mother felt free to come and go as she pleased.  She had taken a house at the Convent of the Poor Clares and arrived one day with news of parliament.

“It was a poor showing but enough to do the job of declaring his Grace the king a traitor and usurper and attainting him, his brother of Gloucester, Anthony, Lord Hastings, and sundry other close friends of the king.”

“That won’t trouble him at all,” I said.  “He’s been attainted before.”

“All the statutes of his reign are to be annulled.  The attainders of the Lancastrian lords are reversed but nothing has been done about restoring their lands.  A situation rife with peril,” she chuckled, “as those lands are now in the possession of men Warwick can’t afford to offend.  Edmund Beaufort was confirmed in the title of Duke of Somerset.  Another act entailed the crown on Henry and his heirs male, or, Henry’s heirs failing, upon the Duke of Clarence and his heirs male.”

Clarence!  Promised a crown and now with nothing to show for all his treason and betrayals.  He had intimated that when the time was right, he would return to the king’s side, which I interpreted to mean that he would wait to see which way the tide turned.  Come what may, he intended to be on the winning side.  And he probably would be.  How I hated him.

“He has been offered the dukedom of York, but he is very dissatisfied.  It is said he and Lord Warwick quarrel daily.”

“I am glad of it,” I said fiercely.

“Warwick will have to watch him.  He will have to watch Somerset and Exeter even more closely when they come.  Oh, to be a fly on the wall of the Star Chamber when the lot of them go head to head!” she said with another chuckle.

Other than his brother the archbishop, was there a single man in England Warwick could rely on?  I said: “I wonder if he yearns for those bygone days when allies were men he could trust, and enemies were men he despised.”

The birth of my son had filled me with a new anxiety.  I feared what would happen to him if Margaret should beat Edward back to England.  She was still in France with her son, reluctant to let him set foot in England until Warwick had made it secure.  Somerset and Exeter were with her; to leave any earlier would be to put themselves under Warwick’s rule.  It was expected that she would depart with the French ambassadors.  She was aptly called She-wolf.  What would she not do to protect her cub?

“Damn Charles!  Damn him! 
Damn him!
”
 
When I thought what it had cost Edward to get that vexatious churl
for his sister, I wanted to break something, or tear something, or kick something – like a ducal posterior fundament!

“Give him time.  Give him time.  He’s in an unenviable position,” my mother said with supreme calm.  “A most unsatisfactory ally he has proven to be, but for all that, better him than Louis.  I could almost pity poor Warwick.  Two ships and seven hundred men!  What an ally!”

“They deserve each other!”

She bent over the cradle.  “Charles is a little dense, but one day he will have to realize that he has no choice but to help Edward.  He is eager to continue friendly relations with England as before, merely substituting one king for another.  However, if his enemies make any overtly aggressive moves, he has in his possession a very dangerous weapon to punish them with: Edward.”

Who was leashed for the moment, stuck in Bruges, reading his way through his host’s library, sightseeing, and waiting, waiting, waiting, with a degree of patience it must have taken all the will he possessed to maintain.  Francis of Brittany wouldn’t aid him.  He only worked in a pack, too frightened of Louis to act independently.  No, there was only Charles.  Day by day they were giving him greater excuse to unleash Edward.

“War is inevitable,” she said.  “As soon as Warwick has settled England it will begin in earnest, and Burgundy will find itself crushed between its two powerful neighbors unless Charles can prevent Warwick from playing his part.  His best chance of doing so is to give Edward the aid he needs so that he can return to England and keep Warwick so engaged that he will be unable to give Louis the help he has promised.”

“And to destroy him,” I added fiercely.  I didn’t have to lift a hand.  By his further treason Warwick had sealed his own fate.

“Leading England into war with Burgundy is going to be no easy matter.  Although Calais has demonstrated its loyalty to Warwick in no uncertain terms, the Merchants of the Staple hold the purse strings and therefore the whip hand and they are dead set against a war that will inevitably disrupt the wool trade.  As are the English merchants and all those all over the realm who depend on the wool trade for their livelihood.  And in spite of a hundred years of war, there are still many men in England who dream of another Agincourt.” 

“The fool doesn’t know you can’t force a man to fight a war that will rob him of his livelihood,” I said.

Looking up at a gold crucifix hanging on the wall, my mother said: “Ah, dear Lord, these are such unhappy times.”

……….

The French ambassadors arrived in England to discuss war against Burgundy.  Their departure had been delayed because Louis hoped to persuade Margaret and her son to go with them, but in the end they had left without her.  Love her or loathe her, you had to admit Margaret’s courage.  When speaking of her men used such terms as indomitable, forceful and formidable.  What had made her so faint of heart, I suspected, was motherhood.  She was fearful of trusting her precious lone cub to the land that had driven her out and caged her inept husband. 

No matter what else was going on in the world, we did our best to make sure Christmas was a happy event for the sake of the children.  My girls were young enough that they had soon adjusted and forgot to pine for what they couldn’t have.  Bessie who adored her father hadn’t wept for him because, living at Shene, she was accustomed to being parted from him for long periods, and she had no real understanding of what had happened; but she had wept for a favorite nursemaid and Cecily had screamed like a banshee with her hair afire because a beloved stuffed toy had been left behind.  But my sons, two youths in that difficult transition between boyhood and manhood, were certainly old enough to understand what had happened and to feel their losses.  Neither was of the kind to enjoy enforced idleness and they found the confinements of sanctuary most onerous.

Walter returned from excursions with armloads of holly and mistletoe, which we hung in masses around the abbot’s hall.  A sack of flour was appropriated from somewhere and sprinkled on surfaces to resemble snow.  My mother went shopping with Walter to buy all the children gifts.  I could think of nothing more useful than games for Thomas and Richard: a chess set for Thomas, though he already had a jade and ebony set elsewhere, and a set of
morteaulx
for Richard
to help keep boredom at bay.

Throughout our stay we had awoken to find gifts from the townsfolk outside the door.  It warmed my heart to see how many there were at Christmas: toys for the children, bright ribbons to cheer them, a beef and a mutton from Master Gould, a butcher, and many notes blessing us and wishing us well. 

On the Eve of the Nativity, as a very special treat, the abbot brought some of the boys of the choir to sing for us, and the next day the cook outdid himself at dinner, with pheasant and goose, a huge venison pie, mince tarts and some sticky cakes covered in crushed nuts.  My mother came to help us celebrate, as did Lady Berners, who had remained in the city while her husband was in sanctuary.  One day we even had dancing.  Walter dragged in a fiddler of sorts who compensated in enthusiasm for what he lacked in skill, and Thomas and Richard partnered Anne and I and sometimes Bessie, who loved to dance, while Mary watched and Cecily did her best to get trampled underfoot.

For all our efforts, it was a sorry affair compared to Christmases at Eltham in years past, about which we tacitly refused to reminisce, but when I went in to kiss my daughters goodnight their eyes were glowing and Mary was hugging to herself a brightly painted ball. 

……….

I hoped for snow, so they would at least have that distraction, but what little had fallen was already gone and it wasn’t until Epiphany that enough fell to enable them to dress up in their warm clothes and go out into the garden to make a snowman

Hearing a great deal of noise out there, I went to the window and rubbed my fingers over the fogged glass.  The snowman-making had degenerated, predictably, into a snowball fight.  Thomas and Richard were hurling missiles at each other and shouting with glee when a hit was scored.  The girls were taking no part but standing close by, clapping gloved hands and jumping up and down when Thomas produced such a good hit that Richard was propelled into a hawthorn bush.  Cecily was sat down eating snow.

The door opened, and my mother, who had left to go home just an hour or so earlier, stood framed there, snow melting on her hood and cloak and blowing in behind her.

“He’s done it!” she announced without preamble.  “That poxy Burgundian has finally consented to receive the king!”

As my mother said, the duke was a little dense but he was not a complete fool.  He finally awoke to the danger he was in and, submitting to the pleas of his duchess, his advisers and the dictates of good sense, agreed to receive his brother-in-law.  Just before Christmas, in an effort to force Warwick’s hand, Louis had renounced the treaty of Peronne, which bound him and Charles to mutual defense, and turned his troops loose in Burgundian territory. St. Quentin was seized, Boulogne overrun, Montdidier and Amiens came under attack.  Although Charles protested to England that he only wanted peace, no one doubted that he must soon act in his own defense.   

Did Warwick take note of how very easily the Spider repudiated sworn oaths and formal agreements?  I certainly did, and I thought: Just you wait until he has no more use for you.  Then you will learn how much his friendship means and at the last you will see and repent your folly.  And as for Margaret: even while the two of them were swearing oaths of eternal amity at Angers I didn’t doubt that she was plotting his destruction.    

With Charles’ help, my husband was readying a fleet at Flushing; Margaret was delaying and delaying, and my little household and I were praying daily that he would beat her home. 

In London, Mayor Stockton took to his bed with a nameless malady.  It was the opinion of Walter that there was nothing wrong with him apart from a want of ‘testicular vigor’. The deputy mayor, Sir Thomas Cook, fell victim to the same malady but instead of taking to his bed he took to his heels.  With his son and much of his treasure he fled across the sea, only to be captured by a Flemish pirate.  Taking the helm to steer London through the shoals ahead was a plucky grocer named Ralph Verney.

We were gratified to learn that when news that the king was ready to sail reached England, the French ambassadors were so keen to leave a realm about to succumb to the rigors of civil war that they made away in the night (with a ten year-long truce to present to their master but the war against Burgundy not yet announced and no mercantile agreement).  Moved by a letter he had received from Edward, Duke Francis sent the Bastard of Brittany to sea and the Bretons succeeded in capturing one of the French ships laden with the hackneys and plate Henry had presented to the ambassadors along with other of their belongings.  Some of the loot found its way into Edward’s poor but grateful hands.  Cash donatives came from the Merchants of the Staple, not one of whom wanted to see England at war with Burgundy. 

One bright and cold March morning, the children were all in the hall having their lessons and I walked down to the riverbank with Anne for a breath of air.  Across on Lambethmoor, two lads were fishing with poles.  Traffic was light, only an empty ferryboat going downstream.  The Archbishop of York’s barge was tied up at Westminster’s stairs. George Neville was busy at the chancery, taking the law courts into his own lawless hands.  An old shoe lay in the shallows amid an assortment of rotting refuse, bits of broken packing crates and a dead bird.  I wondered if it was one of a pair thrown away because they were too worn, or did it have a foot in it when it went into the river?  Sometimes people used the river as a convenient place to dispose of the dead if they couldn’t afford the cost of a funeral or simply couldn’t be bothered or if the deceased had no kin; and sometimes corpses were fished out bludgeoned to death or with their throats cut.  As I watched the shoe washing back and forth with the wavelets, I made a vow that if my husband returned, if we all came safely through this, I would found a chapel at Westminster.

The abbey bells had just rung the hour of nones when we turned back to the abbot’s house and saw my mother hurrying toward us.  She had gained weight over the years and consequently suffered decreased mobility coupled with shortness of breath, but I think on this occasion it was sheer excitement that made her pant.  She spoke only six words.   

“The king has landed in Yorkshire.”

Lifting a reliquary that hung on a chain between my breasts, I kissed it   “
Deo gratias!
Now let all the saints of heaven hear my prayers and keep him safe.”