Red Rose, White Rose (22 page)

I counted in my head. ‘But the queen was only sixteen at the time of Gloucester’s death, Richard. Even under the influence of Suffolk, I am sure she was not of an age or inclination to do anything so vile as to procure a murder? Besides, we do not know exactly how Gloucester died. It was most likely a seizure. He was well into his fifties.’

‘I know that and you know that but try telling the Londoners. Margaret is French and a woman, that is enough to make her the embodiment of evil in their eyes.’ Richard reached for his cup and waited while a hovering Tom Neville re-filled it for him. The squire seemed to have taken over the job of his uncle’s cup-bearer, perhaps because it kept him near to Maud Willoughby at the high-table. Richard leaned in Willoughby’s direction and raised the brimming vessel. ‘Here’s to the comfort and security of home, eh, Robert? It is nice not to have to watch our backs.’

The old warrior grinned wearily through his grey beard and nodded before returning the toast. ‘I will drink to that, my lord duke,’ he said, ‘and to soft, warm company!’ This last was offered to Maud, who now sat beside him. She blushed prettily and lowered her gaze while Tom suddenly became uncharacteristically clumsy and splashed wine over the cloth.

When the meal was over we retired to the ducal solar where Richard and his senior knights were served with more wine whilst I and my ladies nibbled sweetmeats and listened to accounts of their experiences. Recently Richard had taken to using Coldharbour Inn as his base in London, a large house on the Thames near the Bridge which had belonged to the Duke of Exeter and would revert to Harry Holland when he came of age. It was a sprawling residence which lacked much luxury but provided enough accommodation for the four-hundred-strong retinue he felt it necessary to maintain while sharing the city with Suffolk and his Beaufort cronies.

Predictably Richard had nothing favourable to say about them. ‘Since he was created Duke of Somerset in March, Edmund Beaufort prowls the streets like a wolf surrounded by his pack.’ As he spoke I frowned at a new and very obvious tic in Richard’s left eyelid, worrying that it might be a symptom of some developing ailment. ‘He lords it over hundreds of retainers at his inn and always has a mass of them around him every time he ventures out. The streets between his inn and Suffolk’s are worn hollow by their horses’ feet.’

‘Perhaps it is vainglory,’ I remarked. ‘He must have come into a considerable inheritance since the deaths of his brother and his uncle, the cardinal, and so he can now afford to make a grand impression.’

Richard shook his head. ‘I wish it were mere vainglory but he did not inherit. Mindful of his transgressions on earth, wily old Cardinal Beaufort willed most of his vast wealth to good causes and the Somerset estates went to the late duke’s daughter, Margaret. She must be the richest five-year-old in England and the king has predictably granted her marriage to Suffolk, who of course instantly betrothed her to his infant son. The new Duke of Somerset would be virtually penniless if he had not wormed his way into the king’s favour and set about milking the royal coffers. While the queen keeps the king out of London, only Somerset and Suffolk attend council meetings, along with the Chancellor and Treasurer who are both their men and you will be appalled to hear, my lady, that this cabal has now appointed Somerset the king’s lieutenant in France and paid him twenty thousand crowns in advance. Twenty thousand! I, on the other hand, am appointed Henry’s royal lieutenant in Ireland without any advance; an office which, if I do not die of plague like my uncle of March, they doubtless hope will beggar me whilst keeping me well away from power and influence.’

I could see now why Richard looked so angry and stressed. This was the accumulation of all his worst nightmares. Ireland! My heart sank. My last venture across the Irish Sea had resulted in a miscarriage on the storm-tossed ship, followed by a miserable tour of Richard’s estates which had been undertaken in what had seemed like a constant deluge. I had never been back and had no wish to, but any discussion of this would have to wait until we were away from listening ears. Fortunately the duty chamberlain announced some new arrivals, which instantly put a smile on Richard’s face.

‘Edward, Earl of March, Lord Edmund, and the Ladies Anne, Elizabeth and Margaret, your graces.’

Wearing clean tunics and hose and with brushed hair and scrubbed faces, Edward and Edmund marched into the solar together, followed by their solemn elder sister Anne, holding the hand of three-year-old Elizabeth who had been born in Rouen soon after Queen Margaret’s visit, while little Meg, only just two and born at Fotheringhay, was carried in by their motherly head nurse Anicia. Ten months ago, within weeks of his birth, we had tragically lost another son, baptized William, and I had not yet told Richard that I was once again expecting a child, due in the autumn. After a shaky start, fertility was proving the least of our problems and the thought now struck me that this next expectation would at least give me an excuse not to travel to Ireland this year.

As always Edward managed to be just a step ahead of Edmund in kneeling for his father’s acknowledgement. ‘I give you good evening and welcome, my lord father,’ he said looking up with the dazzling smile that always made my heart lurch. Surely there was no more promising son than this tall six-year-old who seemed so quickly to master every new skill he tried.

‘Thank you, Edward,’ Richard said, bending to lay his hand on the gleaming head of his son and heir. ‘May God bless you – and you also, Edmund,’ he added, moving his hand across to his younger son’s wiry mouse-brown mop. ‘It gives me great joy to see you both so bright and healthy.’ He turned to greet Anne and Elizabeth, who made careful curtsies, and to stroke little Meg’s rosy cheek. ‘And my beautiful brood of girls – you are all the pride of York.’ He smiled across at me. ‘Are they not, Cicely?’

‘Indeed, my lord.’ I nodded agreement but could not help knitting my brows disapprovingly at Anne, who had sauce stains on the front of her blue kirtle; at nearly nine, I considered her old enough to take more care of her appearance. ‘I am glad you think they do you credit.’ With Richard being so tired and burdened with his political setbacks, I did not consider it necessary to mention the boys’ escapade in the bailey and I had forbidden anyone to make any mention outside the nursery of Anne’s recent relapse into bed-wetting. Anicia had told me there was gossip among the maids that she would marry Harry Holland and it was this that had tipped her back into infantile incontinence.

Being a man and unaware of Anne’s sensitivity, Richard baldly launched into an announcement which soon had her eyes widening in alarm. ‘This would seem a good moment to tell you, my friends and family, that I did not stay long in London but travelled to visit the king and queen at Berkhamstead Castle. You would like it there, Cicely. The rose gardens are beautiful and Queen Margaret likes to hunt in the nearby Forest of Ashridge. It is not unlike Fotheringhay.

‘But my main purpose in going was to approach the king regarding the marriage of the Duke of Exeter. Ah, there you are, Harry.’ Richard had been scanning the room and spotted the sulky squire who, having missed his dinner was lurking in a shadowy corner consuming the contents of a dish of comfits. ‘I am sure you will be pleased to hear that King Henry has agreed to a union between you and our daughter Anne. It is an excellent match, one that will join two great and noble houses and has been approved by the Vatican without objection.’

I could have shaken Richard for not letting me prepare Anne for this momentous news. Did he not realize that the arrangement of her marriage was the most important matter in a young girl’s life? Not something to be announced in front of a score of people, some of whom were relative strangers. However, before I could reach out to her, Harry scurried between us to launch a violent protest.

‘No, no, no! I do not give a tinker’s fart for the Vatican but
I
have objections. I have no wish to live in the House of York, let alone marry into it. I shall inform the king that I refuse the match. What man would want to marry this snivelling brat?’ He almost, but not quite, poked his extended forefinger into Anne’s gravy-stained chest. ‘She dribbles when she eats and pees the bed. I refuse to marry a moron, particularly a York moron!’

I was scandalized. How dared he call Anne a moron? And how did Harry know about Anne’s night-time lapses? I leaped up to put an arm around her and lead her away from him. I could feel her violent trembling.

‘Silence, knave!’ Richard’s voice thundered into the vaulted ceiling of the solar making everyone jump. ‘How dare you defy the king and disparage the House of York?’ He shouted an order at the chamberlain who stood goggle-eyed at the door. ‘Summon the guard! I want this braggart locked away.’

Two guards who had been on duty at the entrance to the privy apartments quickly arrived and the sight of their sharp-edged halberds aimed at his throat drained the blood from Harry’s hitherto flushed face. ‘Jesu, do not kill me!’ he cried, turning terrified eyes to Richard. ‘I am your ward.’

Richard gestured impatiently to the over-eager guards to back off a little. ‘A fact you would do well to remember, Harry,’ he said grimly. ‘The king has placed you in my care and I am responsible for your future, which I have arranged with the king’s consent. Your betrothal to Anne will take place tomorrow.’

‘No!’ Harry’s fierce anger boiled up again, despite the proximity of the guards. ‘I told you, I do not agree to this union. It is unsuitable. My father would never have consented to it and I will not be forced into it.’

It was with obvious difficulty that Richard maintained a level tone. ‘It is not a matter of force and your agreement is unnecessary. The king has agreed, the pope has agreed and as your guardian I have agreed; so it will be accomplished whatever adolescent objections you think you may have.’

Harry had not finished, however. ‘I am of the blood royal,’ he hissed, glaring around the room as if to challenge anyone to deny this. ‘My father was a grandson of the great John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. He would never have permitted me to ally myself to York!’

‘Harry, Harry!’ Richard assumed a benign expression and approached me where I stood comforting Anne, lifting my free hand and kissing it in a courtly fashion, smiling at me briefly. ‘Surely you are aware that York is already allied to Lancaster. My wife is also a grandchild of John of Gaunt. Your marriage will reinforce that bond. Now calm down, my fiery young lord, and have done with this madness.’ He released me and moved to place a fatherly hand on his ward’s shoulder.

Harry was still not finished, however. He shrugged off Richard’s conciliatory gesture with an oath and pointed a juddering finger at me. ‘Christ’s blood! Her mother was a Beaufort. Beaufort is not true-born Lancaster. Only King Henry and I are of the true royal line, descended from Edmund the Crusader, bringer of the red rose. We are pledged to trample the white rose into the dust! We shall not rest until it is wiped from the heraldry of England.’

Now he was spitting venom, apparently heedless of the consequences of his words. Alarmed at his spiralling aggression, Cuthbert had moved silently up behind him, unobserved. I pulled Anne further away. Richard also stepped back, signalling to the guards. ‘Lock him up,’ he ordered bluntly. ‘Let him cool off.’

The squire’s hand went for the dagger he wore at his belt but Cuthbert was too quick for him and had the weapon out of its sheath before Harry could touch it. Alerted by the duty chamberlain, more guards arrived at the solar door and within seconds the squire was surrounded. ‘You cannot do this!’ he screamed, fear and fury sending his voice soaring high. ‘I am the king’s cousin. No man may lay hands on me except by his order.’

‘It is by the king’s order that you are in my care, Harry,’ Richard said, pushing through the guards, anger glinting from narrowed eyes. Advancing his fist to within inches of his ward’s face, he raised his thumb and two fingers one after another and spoke slowly and clearly, as if to an idiot. ‘Soon you will be eighteen … nineteen, twenty, twenty-one … three years. Three more years before you come of age and in the meantime I am master of all that you do and all that you own. Mark me well, Harry Holland. Three more years!’

The duke lowered his hand and stepped back. Harry was being held by two sturdy men. ‘I have decided there will now be no betrothal. Rather, you will be guarded night and day until the time of your wedding, which
will
take place and which
will
be soon.’

Harry yelled as the guards manhandled him through the door. ‘York will regret this. The red rose will prevail!’ Then the door closed and his voice was muffled by thick stone walls.

I wanted to give Anne reassurance, but in view of Richard’s emphatic assertion that the marriage would take place I could find no words to soothe her shuddering sobs; meanwhile he was reaffirming his intention, while apologizing to the occupants of the solar.

‘I regret that this unpleasant scene should have taken place before you all. I particularly regret that Anne has witnessed such uncontrolled behaviour on the part of her future husband and trust that he will find some way to redeem himself in her eyes.’

‘Jesu, I fear the boy is mad,’ I muttered under my breath, desperately wondering how I might manage to talk Richard out of pursuing this dreadful marriage.

At that moment, however, he appeared adamant. ‘Harry will calm down and meanwhile he is still the Duke of Exeter and, as he so vehemently points out, one of the last full-blooded Lancastrians. We cannot afford to allow that connection to be exploited by others. We need to keep him in the family. The marriage must take place.’

Clinging to my neck, little Anne burst into a new paroxysm of weeping. Edward approached us and stood gazing at her, puzzled. ‘There is no need to cry, Anne,’ he said. ‘It is only a marriage.’

Fotheringhay, June 1448

Cicely

S
ituated a short distance from the castle, the Collegiate Church and Chantry of St Mary and All Saints at Fotheringhay was the most spectacular evidence of Richard’s firm belief that his own personal faith in Christ, together with divine mercy reinforced by a generous financial outlay, would minimize his soul’s sojourn in purgatory. A dozen masons still worked on the magnificent vaulting of the choir, while in the cloistered hall alongside the church lived thirteen canons and thirteen choristers dedicated to chanting near-continuous masses and prayers of intercession for the souls of the Lancastrian kings and the dukes of York. In the windows, instead of the usual stained-glass images of saints and bible stories, coloured glass medallions showed the arms and emblems of the House of York and the families which had married into it. The tragic little bodies of our two dead baby sons, Henry and William, occupied a corner of the Lady Chapel, in the sanctuary were the tombs of Richard’s uncle and grandfather, the first two Dukes of York, and he intended that we would lie there ourselves when the time came.