Red Rose, White Rose (57 page)

Baynard’s Castle, London, January to March 1461

Cicely

T
hose winter months were dark indeed. If it had not been for Margaret I do not think I would have emerged sane from that black time. The mere thought of what the fiendish Lancastrians had done to my family sent me deep into the pit of despair and I thought about it almost every minute of every hour of every day. I had not seen them with my own eyes but York herald’s description had been enough to stamp a picture in my mind and whenever I closed my eyes I could see the severed heads protruding above York’s Micklegate Bar and, worst of all, for some reason Edmund’s was always smiling at me.

‘Why does he smile?’ I groaned at Margaret when we were together in the chapel at Baynard’s Castle. This was where I spent much of my day but if during my prayers I ever chanced to close my eyes they immediately flew open in alarm. ‘My sweet, innocent Edmund! What is there to smile about, being murdered at seventeen?’

‘Perhaps he is smiling because he is innocent and therefore he is with the saints in heaven.’ Margaret murmured her words of comfort on her knees beside me as she almost constantly was. ‘Or perhaps he does not want you to be sad.’

At not quite fifteen years old, she had given herself the task of mothering her mother and gratefully I let her, weeping in her arms and begging her not to leave my side. She must have wondered why I hardly mentioned Richard or Hal in my lamentations, especially as she mourned her father at least as much, if not more, than her brother, but I could not forgive Richard for taking Edmund into the thick of the battle and I could not forgive Hal for killing Clifford’s father at St Albans and sowing the seeds of revenge in the young heir’s mind. Theirs were the other two heads that my fevered mind’s eye saw rotting on the Micklegate Bar but theirs were grinning in the rictus of death, not smiling the way Edmund’s was. His smile was for me alone, a smile of love and tenderness which I did not deserve and could not abide.

I had learned of the dreadful defeat and of the deaths of my menfolk on the eve of Epiphany and for the first time in my life I had swooned with shock, unable to stomach the idea that their heads had been severed from their bodies and displayed on pikes as traitors. But it was Cuthbert who related the whole horrifying tale of the battle and its aftermath.

I had barely recognized him when he arrived back at Baynard’s in the middle of January. He had been forced to travel by night and on a circuitous route in order to avoid Lancastrian fiefs and strongholds and when he entered my solar I took him for a stranger until I saw Hilda run into his arms with cries of joy. His hair had turned completely white and he was so thin his clothes hung off him like the rags on a scarecrow. Moreover his demeanour was utterly forlorn, his face pale and unshaven and his eyes red-rimmed and constantly downcast. As soon as he extricated himself from Hilda’s embrace he flung himself at my feet, craving my forgiveness in a voice that was hoarse with grief.

‘I am sorry, Cicely. I could not save him. Forgive me. I could not save your boy!’

I stood up and forced him to rise. When I put my arms around him I could feel the bones of his shoulders through his jacket. Never far away, my tears flowed freely down my cheeks as I drew him to a window seat and beckoned Hilda to follow. ‘It could never be your fault, Cuddy, never!’ I croaked. ‘Tell me; please tell me of my poor Edmund’s death.’

In halting words he related the events of that fateful day and the terrible details he had discovered of its aftermath. There were long pauses in Cuthbert’s narrative while he blinked back tears and tried to compose himself but this was the gist of his tale and how I learned of the dreadful ignominy inflicted on my husband by drunken and vengeful Lancastrians in the great hall of his own castle.

‘They found him dead on the battlefield and carried his body in triumph up to Sandal Magna along with Edmund’s. There they hacked off Richard’s head, crowned it with a paper crown and impaled it on a pike, waving it around like a puppet while spitting on it and mocking “the man who dared to think himself a king!” Then they cut off Edmund’s already almost-severed head and mocked him as “the son of the would-be king!”. The next day they brought our loved ones’ remains to Pontefract where they threw them into unmarked graves.

‘But our poor brother Hal suffered torture. Having been captured, naturally he expected to be held for ransom but at Pontefract he was shown Tom’s body, which had also been taken from the battlefield, and forced to watch as his son’s head was hacked off. Then Hal himself was publicly denounced as a traitor and summarily executed in the castle bailey. There was no trial, no justice, just a jeering crowd, an axe and a tree-stump. They sang bawdy songs as all four heads were waved aloft on pikes and then taken to York in procession, there to be exposed to the crows and the ravens on the Micklegate Bar.’

‘I learned of this heartless and bloody vengeance from the people with whom I took shelter in Wakefield and then I was forced to flee through the back garden as Lancastrian soldiers hammered at the front door, seeking Yorkist refugees.’

Cuthbert looked exhausted as he ended his story and we pressed food and wine on him, which he barely tasted. Later, in a private moment between him and me, he also revealed John Neville’s terrible treachery.

‘I never saw Lord Neville come because it happened when I was taking Edmund from the field but apparently he did march in from the north with two thousand men to the cheers of our embattled forces, who saw him as their salvation. But then, under their very eyes, he crossed the line and joined the Lancastrians. Queen Margaret had promised him Middleham and Sheriff Hutton. It was Richard’s death knell, Cicely.’

‘Do not call that Frenchwoman queen, Cuddy,’ I snapped, my heart plummeting deeper in my already grief-stricken breast. ‘I pray to God that she will rot in hell and that John Neville will suffer the torture of having his son die before him at another man’s hand.’

My mind was reeling and I struggled to breathe. It did not seem possible that John had crossed the line. I could not fathom how the man I had loved and who I thought had loved me could have knowingly made himself the cause of my husband’s death and worse than that, effectively an accomplice to my son’s murder. Had his love turned to hate? Was this his idea of revenge? His sadistic way of showing me that I had not won when I betrayed his love at Aycliffe Tower? Had we shared love at Coverdale so that he could ultimately betray me in his turn? And for what? For his son to inherit a couple of castles and a strip of England? It did not seem possible. We had parted friends. I had thought him a tender lover and honourable man. Instead he had revealed himself as a vengeful, greedy creature who had made me a notch on his bedpost and then stabbed me in the back. It was too much for me to bear. I thought that nothing now could drag me out of the pit of despair.

As his father had commanded, Edward had been marshalling his supporters on the Welsh border ready to take on Jasper Tudor’s army when it set out from Pembroke to join the Lancastrian forces. After their gory triumph at Wakefield the red-rose banners had moved south and at the beginning of February Edward’s and Jasper’s armies clashed at a place called Mortimer’s Cross near Wigmore Castle resulting, praise be to God, in another glorious victory for Edward. Jasper successfully fled the field but his father Owen Tudor, King Henry’s step-father, was captured and taken to Hereford with other prisoners. In another mass blood-letting, without trial or sentence, all of them had been beheaded in the market place there.

With my own grief still raw I considered that Edward could be forgiven for seeking Owen’s execution as revenge for the death of his own father and brother at Wakefield but in a letter he informed me that he had not ordered the executions.

‘I would not regard the beheading of Owen Tudor as adequate revenge for the death of my father and brother I assure you. I was away chasing Jasper Tudor, a man I consider far more important prey than his ageing rapscallion of a father. But the deed is done now and when I am king I shall grant Owen’s Welsh manors to William Herbert, who has been my staunchest ally and support in the West …’

The name William Herbert and the granting of Owen Tudor’s manors meant nothing to me but Edward’s assertion ‘when I am king’ stirred me out of my lethargy. Of course, under the Act of Settlement, he was now the heir to the throne, but this letter implied that he had decided not to wait for the death of King Henry but to take the crown by force of arms, and since Dick of Warwick was still in London preparing to hold the city against the advancing Lancastrians, he had made the decision without consulting his cousin and mentor. While my desolate spirits soared at the drive and energy and military skill Edward had displayed, I wondered how Dick and his fellow magnates would regard the prospect of paying homage to such a young and untried king. I decided to pay a visit to the Erber, the imposing London residence of the Earl of Warwick.

I had not been abroad in the streets since hearing of the losses at Wakefield and I was surprised at how quiet they were. It was as if the citizens were cowering behind closed doors fearful of what might be to come. Posted all over Cheapside were bills and pamphlets declaiming against the Lancastrians and warning Londoners that their properties and livelihoods were gravely at risk if the ‘raiders from the north’ marched through the gates. I detected Warwick’s propaganda machine at work, bolstering his own position as London’s defender and stressing the dangers of a rampaging Lancastrian army let loose in a city of rich merchant warehouses.

Dick was magnanimously welcoming but received me in the great hall where he conducted his business, which bustled with servants and military personnel coming and going on their duties and clerks and couriers dealing with the earl’s surfeit of correspondence.

‘My poor bereaved aunt,’ he boomed in a voice that carried into the rafters. ‘I humbly crave your grace’s pardon. We have not yet commiserated together over the appalling deaths of our loved ones but as you see,’ he waved his black-velvet-clad arm to encompass the grand and crowded chamber, ‘there are many calls upon my time.’ He walked around his table of business, took my hand and kissed it. ‘You are greatly distressed I have no doubt but the news from Hereford is good.’

‘Indeed I am and it is,’ I acknowledged, thinking wryly that dark rings under inflamed eyes framed by a widow’s wimple and barbe hardly indicated that I was about to dance a galliard. ‘And it is news from Edward that brings me here, not commiserations. May I speak with you privately, my lord?’

Dick did not look eager to oblige but nevertheless guided me quickly through his privy door and into a small ante-room. ‘Have you heard from Edward today?’ I enquired, reaching into my sleeve-pocket for his letter.

‘Not today but I gather men are flocking to his banner following his splendid victory at Mortimer’s Cross. Why do you ask?’

‘Let me read you a paragraph from a letter I received from him today.’ I said. When he heard the key phrase ‘when I am king’ his face did not alter but I thought I heard his tongue click behind his teeth. ‘Has Edward broached the matter of claiming the throne outright with you, Dick?’ I asked baldly, re-folding the letter.

He rubbed his nose thoughtfully, couching his elbow in his other hand. ‘We have not spoken together since before the duke was killed as you know but no, he has not mentioned it to me in his letters. It is certainly a possibility.’

‘He is so young. After years of ineffectual rule the kingdom needs firm government. Is he really ready to take on the responsibilities of kingship?’

Dick shrugged and his lips twitched. ‘Your son is a prodigy, my lady. Besides, he would not be alone. He would have me beside him.’

‘So you would support him?’

‘Yes I would and I would not be the only one. There is no doubt he has the right. But first we have to deal with the ever-growing horde of Lancastrians who are marching down from the north, ravaging the country as they go. The Frenchwoman has told them they can have victors’ spoils if they fight their way to London and I have the task of stopping them, otherwise the city will be ransacked. So, much though I would love to debate the merits and demerits of your son as King of England, if you will forgive me, I have more urgent matters to attend to.’

This interview had not made me anymore favourably disposed towards Warwick than I had been before but at least I had the reassurance of one very powerful magnate that he would support Edward’s claim to the throne if, indeed, he intended to make it.

Nor did my opinion of my nephew improve after he led a large force against the Lancastrians in the middle of February and clashed with them once again at St Albans. This time Londoners were really given reason to panic because their blue-eyed hero failed to see off the much-feared horde and was forced to retreat further north with the remnants of his army, thus leaving their golden city wide open to Lancastrian rape and pillage. For me however, the most serious consequence of this defeat had been that Warwick had taken the king to the battle and managed to lose him. King Henry had been found by Lancastrian officers in his usual state of dazed bewilderment sitting under an oak tree somewhere and been reunited with his wife and son, which meant that he could no longer be held in London as a useful hostage against Lancastrian good behaviour.

Once again I put aside my state of mourning because now I could foresee that if the leading Lancastrians entered London – Somerset and Exeter in particular – they would have no compunction in using my two younger boys as hostages in their turn, bringing terrible pressure to bear on Edward and Dick when they united to confront their enemies again, to say nothing of the terror it would inflict on George and Dickon.

The two boys answered my summons from the schoolroom with their different attitudes to life reflected in their dress. Although only eleven George already had his own distinct ideas about what he wore and had perched his cocky black felt hat at a jaunty angle and pinned a bright blue cockade on it, making little concession to the solemnity of mourning, and he had insisted that the tailor put wide puffed sleeves on his tight-waisted and full-skirted black doublet, whereas eight-year-old Dickon, less flamboyant and more prone to chill than his brother, looked swamped in a rather clerical black gown relieved by a dark fur lining and a fur-edged cap. They both bent the knee and kissed my cheek before I bid them pull up stools to sit beside me.