Red Rose, White Rose (50 page)

I waited a few minutes, listening anxiously for any sounds of conflict which might indicate that they had met opposition but none came. Looking up at the dark sky, studded with diamond stars, I had mixed feelings about the bright gibbous moon that stood like a gleaming misshapen lantern, high in the heavens. It would light them on their way but might also reveal them to unwelcome observers. I sent up a prayer to St Christopher to grant them safe conduct and shivered in the chill October air. As I turned to hurry back across the drawbridge to the inner court a familiar figure stepped out to meet me. It was Cuthbert; dear, faithful, worried-looking Cuthbert.

Before he could speak I greeted him warmly, taking his hand and planting a kiss on his stubbled cheek. ‘I should have known you would not be far away, Cuddy. At least they went off safely – no sounds of ambush at the bridge. Now I want you to leave too. You must go back to Hilda and the children and pray that when the Lancastrians come to Middleham, which they certainly will, they do not interfere with the tenant farmers. Put on a smock, Cuddy, and revert to your mother’s roots. They will stand you in much better stead than your Neville connections in these coming months.’

The moonlight shone in his eyes, reflecting their genuine anguish. ‘I never thought to hear you denigrate your family name, Cis,’ he said sorrowfully.

‘Sadly in England’s present state the Nevilles do not scintillate, on either side of the struggle. The best of them have just set off for Calais though it is far from certain whether they will get there or if they will return, it could be months, years before they do. I will pray constantly for my husband and sons of course but God knows that in my heart it is Edward on whom I pin my hopes.’

Cuthbert shook his head and the badge on his draped hat caught the moon’s rays. ‘He is over-young to carry such a burden,’ he observed. ‘But what will you do, Cis, when the Lancastrians enter the town tomorrow? I should be standing at your side through good and bad times, as your father made me promise.’

I smiled and pointed to the gleaming badge. ‘No, Cuddy, you should be protecting your wife and children. I insist that you ride away from Ludlow tonight but before you do, take off that badge I beseech you! You should not even be found with it about your person. Give it to me and I will keep it safe for you. If I send it back, you will know that I have need of you. I know you will come.’

He dipped his head and I unpinned the enamelled white rose from his hat and slipped it into the purse on my belt. Later I would transfer it to the hem of my chemise into which Margaret and I had already sewn a number of gold and silver coins. I foresaw a time when a small bribe to the right person might prove extremely useful.

‘Now, find your squire and your horse, Cuddy, and go back to Coverdale. And may God and all his angels guard you and your family.’

After speaking to Cuthbert, I had obeyed Richard’s instructions to tell the Ludlow constable of his lord’s departure and advised him to muster his men at dawn, leave the castle open and march them down to spread the word at Ludford Bridge. I had then placed all my personal jewellery and keepsakes in the strong-room and put the key in the purse I would later wear on a belt hidden under my outer clothing. I did not know whether the iron-clad door would withstand a Lancastrian onslaught but it was the best I could do.

To my surprise, when I lay down in the magnificent ducal chamber that night for what might be the last time, I actually slept, waking only as the first light of dawn broke through the unshuttered windows. Most of my ladies had wisely decided to return to their homes or if that was not possible to friends nearby, but two of them had elected to stay with me. They had slept on mattresses in the ante-room and soon arrived to help me dress in the plain brown kirtle and warm riding heuque I had decided would be unpretentious and practical garb for wherever the events of the day took me. Afterwards I went to the children’s quarters and selected similarly modest attire for them, neat and plain, without fuss or ornament. I had chosen clothes suitable for riding because I could not imagine that I or the children would be allowed to remain long at Ludlow. In fact I half expected us to be taken to some royal castle as prisoner-hostages and dreaded that it might be in the custody of the queen, who I feared would be a pitiless gaoler. Revenge being best served cold, I did not expect to spend a comfortable winter. I had one single hope: that being a mother herself she would not inflict any suffering on my children.

I sent my two ladies to see if there was any hope of breakfast and they reappeared with jugs of ale, some hard cheese and day old bread, reporting the kitchen empty and the ovens cold. Clearly the Ludlow lords were not the only ones to have made a surreptitious exit from the castle overnight. We dipped the hard bread in the ale and tried to nibble a little of the cheese but Ursula would eat nothing and although Margaret tried to persuade Dickon, he simply shook his head, his huge round eyes and vivid pallor betraying his state of high anxiety. George seemed to have adopted his father’s habit of pacing the floor when he was worried and barely stopped to drink a cup of ale and swallow a crust or two of bread. He only spoke to complain that he should have been allowed to go with Richard and Edmund and insisted on wearing his precious short sword, even though I told him that it would probably be taken from him, never to be seen again.

Eventually I suggested that we all go the castle chapel and pray for the safety of the absent men. Anicia picked up Ursula, wrapped in her blankets, carrying her like a baby, and followed us as we emerged through the great hall arch and down the grand stone stairway into the inner court. Alarmingly we could hear the first sinister rumbles of action coming from the direction of the town; muffled shots of small-arms fire and massed male voices raised in shouts of rage and aggression. I did not hesitate but ushered the children quickly towards the castle chapel, the one place which I hoped would remain inviolate, even if the rest of the stronghold was ransacked.

The delicately carved stone archway at the entrance to the chapel of St Mary Magdalene drew us into its reassuringly calm interior. Its unique circular nave had recently been extended into a rectangular chancel so that the building now echoed the shape of the fetterlock depicted with a falcon on the distinctive York insignia. Its interior walls were freshly decorated with colourful bible stories and hagiography, surrounding us in a circle of benediction as we passed through the nave and into the chancel where, to my surprise, candles blazed and the castle chaplain knelt at the altar in prayer.

‘I knew you would come here to find sanctuary, your grace,’ the priest said when he turned to greet us. ‘God will sustain and protect you within the circle of His holy house.’

Then he said mass and we all prayed and waited. Ursula’s fever had dropped a little overnight but she was torpid and appeared to fall asleep when Anicia sat with her on her knee in the sedilia while the rest of us knelt, huddled close together at the altar rail.

In the end neither the king nor the queen came to Ludlow Castle that day. Instead it was my brother-in-law Humphrey Duke of Buckingham who entered the chapel in full armour accompanied by his son, my nephew Sir Henry Stafford. The chaplain hurried forward to meet them at the chancel arch, begging them humbly not to enter the sanctuary bearing arms. I, too, rose and urged the children to come with me so that we met the two knights together as a group. It was then that I remembered George’s small sword, which still hung in its scabbard from his belt.

‘You have my assurance, Sister, that we come in peace,’ said Humphrey, bowing punctiliously along with his son. He had immediately noticed the sword hanging at George’s side. ‘But I do not think we can lay down our arms while we confront an armed son of York.’

With his right hand on the hilt of his own sword, he held out his left hand for George’s, an implacable expression on his face. I nodded in response to my son’s anguished and enquiring look and George sullenly unbuckled his sword and handed it over.

‘Thank you. Now I think we can agree that York has officially surrendered to Lancaster.’ Humphrey stood back, indicating that I should pass in front of him. ‘To avoid offence to the Almighty, let us conduct the rest of our business in the nave. I think you will find any other room in the castle uncomfortably lively. My men are justifiably angry at being cheated of a chance to avenge the death and injury inflicted by York on Lancaster at St Albans and so, although I have tried to restrict looting in the town of Ludlow, I have felt powerless to deny them enjoying some of the spoils of war in a castle so cravenly abandoned by its suzerain.’

In other words, I thought bleakly, it was a free-for-all at Ludlow Castle. Through the open door of the chapel the sound of troops rampaging was unmistakable. Smoke hung over the inner court and drifted towards us, making our eyes smart, and men wearing helmets and gambesons bearing red-rose badges could be seen running across the inner court yelling Lancastrian war cries and waving looted articles. Seeing George’s red-faced fury and Margaret’s attempts to comfort Dickon, who was trembling with shock, I found my voice for the first time.

‘I hope you will not subject the children to the horror of seeing their home torn apart by vandals, my lord,’ I said hoarsely, forcing back angry tears. ‘They are innocent bystanders in the vicious feuds of their elders.’

Humphrey beckoned me aside and spoke low so that the children would not hear. ‘Their lives may not be forfeit for treason as their father’s and brothers’ are but they are guilty by birth and association and will be held under house arrest; as will you, Cicely. When the king heard that you remained in the castle he ordered that the children be made wards of my wife, your sister Anne, and for the time being you and they will be held at Maxstoke Castle. Arrangements are being made for horses to transport you there immediately. My son Henry here will escort you.’

My immediate reaction was relief that we were not to be placed under royal control; then I frowned and gestured at Ursula, who was still in Anicia’s arms, lying white-faced and apparently unconscious. ‘As you see, Ursula is ill and unable to ride, even on a pillion-seat. I hope your men have not set fire to all the carts in the stables.’

He favoured me with a grim smile. ‘They are more likely to have commandeered them to transport their loot from the castle. However, one will be requisitioned. Is there a key to lock the chapel?’

‘The chaplain has it.’ I gestured to the priest, who stood at the chancel arch wringing his hands. ‘But none of us will abscond, if that is what you fear.’

Humphrey grimaced and shook his head. ‘That is not my concern. I worry more that the men may not stop at slaking their thirst for revenge on your home. Once they broach the contents of your cellars, in drunken fury they may turn their mood of attrition on you.’ He gestured at Margaret who sat with her arm around Dickon. ‘I think your daughter’s marriage prospects are now much reduced anyway but I would hate them to be ruined entirely.’

I stared at him, horror-struck. Until that moment I had not considered the possibility that Margaret, not yet even truly a woman, might be subjected to the kind of ugly and uncontrolled ravishment so often inflicted on defenceless females in time of war. I found myself stuttering with panic as I urged him to take the key from the chaplain. ‘Lock us in then and leave us to our prayers, my lord duke.’

‘I fear they are all you have left, Cicely,’ Humphrey said and, bowing abruptly, left my side.

He and his son left the chapel and we all heard the key turn in the lock. The priest made his way back to the altar where we presently heard his voice raised in a sung mass. I walked over to the arched wall niche where Anicia had sat down with Ursula. ‘She will sleep all day, your grace,’ said the nurse, showing me the flask of herbal elixir she had kept hidden somewhere about her person. ‘I gave her another dose. I thought it best.’

I could not help wishing that I, too, could swallow some of Anicia’s potion and escape the reality of what was to come. First we had to escape the castle unmolested and although I was grateful that our gaoler was to be my sister Anne rather than the queen, I was not confident that it would be an easy sentence. The journey to Maxstoke Castle would take the best part of three days through hostile Lancastrian territory and although Henry Stafford and his men-at-arms might be able to protect us from attack or abduction, there was no guarantee that it would bother to defend us from the abuse and rotten vegetation a hostile local population might hurl. Hatred could be vicious when it was stoked by rumour and propaganda from a victorious affinity against its defeated enemy. Anne had been turned against us at St Albans and there was no telling how much she might hate us now; I was horribly conscious of the fact that the worst enemies were often relatives.

‘What will happen to us, my lady mother?’ asked George, who had walked up behind me, thumbs tucked defiantly in his empty sword belt. ‘I am sorry that I cannot defend you now that they have taken my sword.’

‘We are going to stay with your Aunt Buckingham,’ I told him in as calm a voice as I could muster; one which also carried to Margaret and Dickon now that the dreadful noise from the castle was muted by the locked door. ‘She will keep us safe until your father comes back to us. Now let us all return to the chancel and take comfort from the holy mass. It is all we can do until it is time to leave.’

Maxstoke Castle, October 1459 – July 1460

Cicely

A
nne’s antipathy towards York was even worse than I had anticipated. We had been at Maxstoke Castle for over a week before she even visited our quarters.

It had been a miserable journey from Ludlow. Rain had begun to fall before we left, which may have put out the fires lit by the looters but soaked us within minutes of mounting our horses. I was grateful that at least the cart in which Ursula travelled with Anicia was covered but the rest of us remained wet or damp until we reached Maxstoke three days later. I tried to encourage Richard to share the cart but he threw such a temper tantrum that I gave in to his determination to ride all the way. However, as I feared, the result was a cough which persisted until spring. None of us really recovered from that ride for months.