Red Rose, White Rose (58 page)

‘I am sending you to Bruges,’ I said, watching their reactions carefully. George seemed to glow with excitement and Dickon was the first to protest.

‘To Bruges!’ he echoed in alarm. ‘But why?’

‘Because the Lancastrians defeated the Earl of Warwick at St Albans and although the earl got away, there is no knowing now whether London will open the gates to the enemy. If they do, it would be better if you two sons of York were not in the country.’

‘What do you think they might do to us, lady mother?’ enquired George rather nervously, as if he was not sure if he wanted to hear the answer. ‘Would they kill us like they killed Edmund?’

How I wished children were not so painfully direct! ‘No, George, but they might use you to force Edward and Dick to do things they do not wish to do. Do you understand?’

‘You mean use us as hostages?’

‘Yes, possibly. Basically until the Lancastrians are routed you would be safer in Bruges. The Duke of Burgundy will protect you and he has a court full of artists and intellectuals who will teach you many things that you cannot learn here.’

‘I do not want to leave you, mother,’ said Dickon flatly. ‘Who will protect
you
?’

‘Well you cannot anyway, Dickon,’ George scoffed. ‘You are not even strong enough yet to wield a sword.’

‘That is not true!’ cried Dickon, incensed. ‘I have a wooden one.’

‘That is enough,’ I scolded. ‘Thank you for worrying about me Dickon but I have a whole household of people to protect me and most of all your Uncle Cuthbert. You will sail on Friday with Anicia to look after your everyday needs and your tutor to guide your studies. I will send gifts for your host Duke Philip and his wife the Duchess Isabella. I want you to write to me every week, both of you. I will miss you terribly but let us pray it will not be for long. Soon Edward and Dick will come back to London and it will be safe for you to return.’

I said this with a smile but there was no reason to hope that the situation would improve soon. The boys sailed as planned amid reports flooding in from the towns surrounding London that the Lancastrian army was running riot, plundering and raping and even raiding churches and abbeys, stealing precious chalices and relics for their gold and jewels. This terrifying activity made Londoners more determined than ever that none of them should be admitted to the city, not even the king and particularly not ‘the Frenchwoman’. I heard that my sister Anne, now Dowager Duchess of Buckingham, came with a deputation to the Mayor and Aldermen to plead for the gates to be opened but she did not visit me which was no surprise, nor were her efforts on behalf of the Lancastrians successful. Londoners simply did not believe that promises of good behaviour would be fulfilled and declared that they would wait for the return of the Duke of York and the Earl of Warwick.

It seemed that a battle at the gates of London was almost inevitable as we learned that Edward and Dick had now united their forces near Oxford and were marching south-east together. Margaret and I knelt in the chapel and prayed that God would bring them victory, for another disaster like Wakefield did not bear thinking about. Then we heard that unexpectedly the Lancastrians had retreated back into Bedfordshire in the hope of persuading Londoners that they meant them no harm. Only days later Edward and Dick slipped past them and rode into London at the head of a vast army to be welcomed by gates thrown wide open and the deafening cheers of the citizens.

After he had seen his men safely camped in Clerkenwell Fields Edward came straight to Baynard’s Castle. Margaret and I were in the courtyard to greet him as he rode in wearing a smile nearly as wide as the Thames and a new blue jupon over his armour bearing the image of a white rose surrounded by the sun’s golden rays. Many of his followers had silver badges of a similar design. When we had greeted each other amid the applause of the household, Edward went to change into more comfortable apparel and a meal was served to us privately in front of a roaring fire in the great chamber.

Margaret mentioned the new badge. ‘What does it signify, Edward?’ she asked.

‘Did you not hear about the remarkable omen before the battle at Mortimer’s Cross?’ Edward asked in amazement. ‘I thought the story would have been all round the country with the speed of a thunderbolt.’ He leaned forward eagerly. ‘Let me have the pleasure of telling you about it then. We had word that Jasper Tudor was bringing his force from Pembroke to Ludlow and we waited for them at a place I had chosen long ago as the perfect location for a battle if Wigmore Castle was ever to come under threat from the south. I had fought a battle there a dozen times in my head so I knew exactly how to go about it. It is in a valley where two roads cross and the locals now call it Mortimer’s Cross because they call me Lord Mortimer.’

‘But you are Duke of York now,’ Margaret put in a little irritably. ‘Surely they realize that.’

Edward laughed. ‘The people of the Welsh March pledged their loyalty to the Mortimers hundreds of years ago and are averse to change. I do not care what they call me so long as they follow me with a will, which I am glad to say they do. Anyway when we got there at dawn it was freezing and to keep them warm I set the men to digging ditches and making traps and when the clouds suddenly cleared in mid morning there were seen to be three suns in the sky. All fighting-men are superstitious and Welshmen particularly so and someone started a rumour that this was a sign of God’s displeasure. I did not want them all downing weapons and heading for the hills so I leaped up on a rock and made a rousing speech about how the three suns were a sign of the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Ghost – and that they signified that the Almighty was with us and would help us to win the battle.’ He spread his arms wide to emphasize his point. ‘Which of course He did. So I have adapted the white rose and surrounded it with the sun’s rays as my personal badge of affinity. I am the Sun of York! Good, is it not?’

As Margaret clapped and nodded her agreement, I gazed at this son of mine who seemed so genuinely possessed of divine grace. He was so quick of mind and eye, so confident and sure, that people simply did not doubt his ability to achieve whatever he said he would. I had no doubt that he would sally forth to his next confrontation with the Lancastrians surrounded by God’s rays of grace and men who would follow him to the ends of the earth. I would never show disloyalty by saying so in public but I could not help seeing a quality in my son which had never been evident in his father. Apostasy had been Richard’s downfall but I did not believe that Edward’s followers would ever consider betraying him.

I sat back for a few minutes, watching and listening as he and Margaret laughed and joked together and thought for the first time how alike they were, both in looks and character. They had been separated a great deal as children but I hoped that Edward would come to realize what a great confidant he might make of his sister and she of him. However I was jolted out of my reverie when I heard Margaret suddenly pose the question I had been avoiding like a bat avoids a torch flame.

‘Are you going to be king, Edward? Everyone in London seems to think you are.’

Edward rolled his eyes. ‘Who knows? But God only gives a man one life and I intend to make the most of mine, so I will not refuse a crown if it is offered to me.’

‘If the lords have any sense they will offer it,’ said his sister.

Edward regarded her with a lop-sided smile, head on one side. ‘Do you know, Meg, I rather think they might.’

I was reminded that four years earlier Edward had refused to adhere to Margaret’s request to be called by her full name. ‘The world may call you Margaret.’ He had said the word in a comic pompous voice. ‘But I shall always think of you as Meg. So I shall call you Meg and you can call me Ned. It will remind us that we are special to each other – blood kin. But, Meg, when I am king and you are a queen, please do not call me King Ned.’ The idea had caused them to collapse into giggles. At the time there had been no question of Edward ever being king.

The following day we were all leaving the chapel after hearing masses for the souls of Richard and Edmund when the steward came to tell us that a deputation had arrived from the Great Council and asked to meet with Edward. ‘I took them to the Great Hall, your grace,’ he said to me. ‘There are quite a number of them, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Earl of Warwick and your brother, Lord Fauconberg.’

Edward and I exchanged glances. His face, already solemn after the requiem masses, went quite pale and I saw him briefly grab Margaret’s hand and squeeze it.

‘Have one of the casks of Bordeaux tapped,’ I told the Steward. ‘And Lent or not, tell the cooks to make some honey wafers. We may have something to celebrate.’

A group of some twenty lords and bishops were gathered in the centre of the great hall wearing long furred gowns against the stiff March breezes. Their cheeks and noses were rosy after the short walk from Blackfriars, where they had met earlier that morning. We paused in the arched entrance and I glanced briefly at Edward.

‘Do you want to go first?’ I asked him in a low voice.

He shook his head. ‘No, let us walk together, you, me and Meg. We will see what they have to say.’

As we approached the group I briefly caught the eye of my brother Will, tall at the back. I had not seen him for years and noticed that his beard was streaked with grey. Then the Archbishop of Canterbury stepped forward. Thomas Bourchier was the brother of Richard’s sister Isabel’s husband Viscount Bourchier and the random thought crossed my mind that probably everyone in this room was related to each other either directly or by marriage. Because, like the two branches of Nevilles, the Bourchiers and the Buckinghams had a common grandparent and so, like me, most of them were closely related to someone in the Lancastrian command. York and Lancaster were not factions. Sadly they were family.

The cross on the archbishop’s chest glittered with a pattern of diamonds and his mitre was slightly askew, as if he had donned it hastily. He held in his hand a rolled vellum scroll on which there was, as yet, no seal. He cleared his throat as he unrolled it and then began to read.

‘After much deliberation and consultation with the Commons, the peers of the Great Council of England have decided that Edward, Duke of York, three times great grandson of the puissant King Edward the Third, is by right of birth and descent their true king and on this day, the fourth of March fourteen hundred and sixty one, wish to offer to the said Edward, Duke of York, the crown and throne of England which, in due course, they entreat him to come to the Abbey of St Peter at Westminster to accept.’

The archbishop lowered the scroll and a profound silence fell as every eye in the hall focused on Edward. He took one step forward and I could feel my heart pounding so hard in my chest that I imagined the sound must reach the ears of everyone about me. Then Edward turned to me without speaking and dropped to his knees. I knew the reason. He had said to me once that I would make a wise and beautiful queen and that he and everyone else would kneel at my feet. Now he was about to accept the crown and afterwards, as the highest in the land, he would never kneel to me or to anyone.

He wore no hat and I reached out and put my hands on his golden head. ‘God bless you, Edward,’ I said. ‘My son. My king.’ Then I cupped his smooth, boyish chin in my palm and leaned down to kiss his cheek.

To my astonishment I tasted the salt of tears and knew intuitively that the boy who had so suddenly become a man was weeping for his father. Gently, with my thumb, I wiped the tear away and gave a slight shake of my head. He could grieve later, when the throne was secure. Now was not the time for tears.

Edward stood up and stepped forward, taller and lighter of foot than anyone else in the room. ‘My lords,’ he said and I was pleased to hear his voice emerge loud and firm, ‘I accept your offer and will come with you to Westminster to accept the crown and the throne of England.’

Later in the day, after Edward had been sworn in as England’s lawgiver and enthroned on the King’s Bench at Westminster Hall, Margaret and I sat together in the chancel at Westminster Abbey and watched as the abbot and monks brought out the crown and sceptre of Edward the Confessor and offered them to his namesake. Taking the crown, the new, young Edward placed it reverently on his own head and then sceptre in hand he walked to the throne, sat down and addressed the congregation loudly and clearly.

‘At the request of the Lords and Commons I have accepted the crown of England but this is not a coronation. Sixty-two years ago Henry of Lancaster usurped the throne of Richard the Second. I am the descendant of King Richard’s heir, Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, and as such I am your rightful king. I vow to you in this holy place that I will serve you diligently and faithfully. But I will not be crowned by the archbishop or receive the divine right of kingship by anointment with the holy chrism until I have driven the present usurper Henry and his wife out of the kingdom or else brought them to my royal justice charged with treason. May God bless our realm and all its worthy citizens!’

Because of the lump in my throat I could not cheer his speech as the congregation then did, loud and long. The peers present formed a queue to pay homage to their new king but the line was short. There were so many dukes, earls and barons who were not there and who were even now mustering their next army to throw their might against this untried eighteen-year-old monarch and commander. This was the beginning of a reign but it was not the end of the war.

My thoughts turned to Richard, who had spent so much of his life fulfilling what he saw as his duty to serve and support a king who had failed so utterly to understand the process of government. If Richard had not died at Wakefield, would he now be sitting on the throne in Westminster Abbey taking the homage of his peers? Somehow I could not imagine it. Now more than ever I saw Edward as more Neville than Plantagenet. When I was born, my father had been older than Richard was when he died. I had never known him as a young man but my mother had adored him and told me that he was the kind of man who could turn black clouds into blue sky. Edward certainly had Ralph Neville’s imposing height, his fair hair and his dancing grey eyes and I believed he also had his charisma. It was as much his Neville blood as his Plantagenet breeding that had won him this place on the throne of England. Would the Neville blood with its fighting flair and its charismatic charm keep him alive and fit to reign? I offered a silent prayer that it be so.