Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (2 page)

In London, we took a room at the King’s Head, an inn in Cheapside, and Maman sent word of our arrival to her twin brother, Rowland Velville, whom she had not seen in many years, not since he had left home to serve as a page for an English exile named Henry Tudor. That done, we settled in to wait for him.

Our chamber looked out upon the innyard. To pass the time, I watched the arrivals and departures of guests and the ostlers at work. Servants crisscrossed the open space dozens of times a day on errands. Deliveries were made. Horses were led to stabling. Once I saw a young woman, cloaked and hooded, creep stealthily from her room to another. It was a noisy, busy place, but all that
activity provided a welcome distraction. We had no idea how long we would have to remain where we were.

On the third morning of our stay, the eighteenth day of June, I was awakened by the sound of hammering. I slipped out of bed, shivering a little in my shift, and went to the window. From that vantage point I had a clear view of a half dozen men constructing the oddest bit of scaffolding I had ever seen. It was made entirely of empty wine pipes and hogsheads of wine.

When it was completed, the men secured a heavy wooden object to the top. I blinked, bemused, but I was certain I was not mistaken. I had seen stocks before. Even in France, those who committed certain crimes were made to sit in them while passersby threw refuse and insults their way.

“Jeanne, come away from there!”

I turned to find my mother sitting up in bed, her face all flushed from sleep. I thought her surpassing beautiful and ran to her, clambering up beside her to give her a hug and a kiss. I loved the feel of Maman’s skin, which was soft as flower petals and smelled of rose water.

“What is all that hammering?” she asked.

“Some men built a scaffold out of wine pipes and hogsheads and put stocks on top of it. Is the innyard like a marketplace? Do you think it is the custom to punish criminals at the King’s Head?”

“I think only very special prisoners would merit such treatment. We must dress, and quickly.” Her face, always pale, had turned white as the finest parchment. I did not understand what was wrong, but I was afraid.

We had to play tiring maid to each other, having brought no servants with us from France. I laced Maman into a pale gold bodice and kirtle and helped her don the long rose-colored gown that went over it. We did have fine clothing, and Maman had
taken special pains to pack our best. The fabrics were still new and smelled sweet and the colors were rich and vibrant.

By the time we dressed and broke our fast with bread and ale, a great to-do had arisen in the innyard. Together, as the bell in a nearby church tower rang out the hour of ten, we stepped out onto the low-railed gallery beyond the window and looked down.

A man had been placed in the stocks. His long yellow hair was dirty, and his fine clothing rumpled and soiled, but he still had the look of someone important. It was difficult to tell his age. He slumped like an old man and, since I was only eight, almost everyone seemed ancient to me. In fact, he was no older than my mother, and she was just twenty-four.

The crowd, noisy and jostling, swelled as we watched. They jeered at the prisoner and called him names. He had been put on public display as punishment for some crime. I understood that much. What continued to puzzle me was the strangeness of the scaffold.

“Who is he?” I asked. “What did he do?”

I spoke in French, in the high, ringing voice of childhood. A man in a lawyer’s robe looked up, suspicion writ large upon his swarthy, ill-favored countenance. Those few words had drawn attention to us. Worse, they had marked us as foreigners. Maman hastily retreated into the chamber, pulling me after her, and closed the shutters.

“Who is he?” I asked again.

“Perkin Warbeck,” she answered. “The pretender the soldiers were looking for in Dover.”

The noise outside our window increased as the day wore on until finally, at just past three of the clock, Warbeck was taken away under heavy guard. A scant quarter of an hour afterward, my uncle arrived.

“You have grown up, Rowland,” my mother said as she hugged
her twin hard. “But I would have known you anywhere. You have the look of our father.”

She had not seen her brother since they were nine. Within three years Rowland’s leaving home, Henry Tudor had become King Henry VII of England.

“And you, my dear sister,” Rowland Velville said courteously, “have a most pleasing countenance.”

“Jeanne,” she said, turning to me, “this is your uncle, Master Rowland Velville.”

“Sir Rowland,” he corrected her, sparing one hard stare for me.

I studied the two of them while they talked quietly together, fascinated by their similarities. Both were blessed with thick brown hair and large, deep-set brown eyes. I shared their coloring, but my eyes have golden flecks. I was extraordinarily pleased with that small difference. I did not want to be just like anyone else, not even my beloved mother.

My uncle’s nose was large, long, and thin. My mother’s, too, was thin, but much smaller. Mine was the smallest of all—a “button,” Maman called it. Uncle was of above-average height. Maman came up to his shoulder. Both of them were slender, as was I.

Having given her brother a brief account of our journey, Maman described the scene we had witnessed in the innyard. “Poor man,” she said, meaning Perkin Warbeck.

“Do not waste your sympathy!” Uncle sounded so angry that I took a quick step away from him. “He is naught but an imposter, a commoner’s son impersonating royalty.”

Maman’s brow furrowed. “I know that, Rowland. What I do not understand is why he would try to escape. The rebellion ended months ago. We heard about it at the French court, including how King Henry forgave Warbeck for leading it.”

“Your information is remarkably accurate.”

“Any tale of the English court soon reaches the ears of the king of France. No doubt the English king has similar sources who report on every rumor that comes out of the court of France.”

“If he does, I am not privy to what they tell him. He has never confided in me.”

Maman looked relieved to hear it.

“King Henry does not always reward those who deserve it.”

“He has been generous to you. You have been made a knight.”

“An honor long overdue.” He sounded bitter. “And there were no lands to go with it. He takes more care for the future of this fellow Warbeck! As soon as the pretender admitted that he was an imposter, the king gave him leave to remain at court. He was under light guard but was treated like a guest. Warbeck’s wife fared even better. She has been appointed as one of Queen Elizabeth’s ladies and is accorded her full dignity as the daughter of a Scottish nobleman.”

“Lady Catherine Gordon,” Maman murmured. “Poor girl. She thought she’d married a king and ended up with a mere commoner.”

“Warbeck will be lodged in the Tower of London from now on. He’ll not find life so easy in that fortress, nor will he have any further opportunity to escape.”

“The Tower of London? It is a prison?” Maman sounded confused. “I thought it was a royal palace.”

“It is both, often at the same time. Prisoners accused of treason and those of noble birth are held there. And kings have kept lodgings within the precincts from the earliest days of the realm.”

I tugged on my uncle’s dark blue sleeve until he glanced down with the liquid brown eyes so like my mother’s. “How could a commoner be mistaken for a prince?” I asked.

“He was well coached by King Henry’s enemies.” My uncle
went down on one knee so that we were face-to-face and caught me by the shoulders. “You are a clever girl, Jane, to ask me this. It is important that you know who people are. The court much resembles a small village. If you do not know that the butcher’s wife is related by marriage to the blacksmith, you may do yourself much harm by speaking against him within her hearing. So, too, with plots and schemes. A family’s enmity can—”

“Rowland!” My mother spoke sharply, cutting him off. “Do not continue, I beg of you. She is too young to understand.”

He gave a curt nod, but kept hold of my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye.

“Listen well, Jane. I will tell you a cautionary tale now and save the other story for another day. Many years ago, the two sons of the English king Edward the Fourth were declared illegitimate upon King Edward’s death by Edward’s brother, Richard the Third. Richard then took the throne for himself. Thereafter the princes disappeared. No one knows what happened to them, although most men believe that Richard the Third, now king, had them murdered. Henry Tudor then defeated King Richard in battle at a place called Bosworth and became King Henry the Seventh in his stead. To end civil war, Henry Tudor married Elizabeth of York, Edward’s eldest daughter, even though she, too, had been declared illegitimate by Richard’s decree.”

My uncle glanced at my mother. “King Henry the Seventh is especially sensitive just now on the subject of the royal bastards.”

“That is understandable,” Maman replied. Her expression was serene, her voice calm, but sadness shone in her eyes.

My uncle turned back to me to continue his history lesson. “But King Henry’s throne is not yet secure. He has been plagued by imposters claiming to be one of the missing princes. So far, his grace has always been able to discover their true identities and
expose them, taking the heart out of the traitors who support them. But many rebellious souls still exist in England, men all too ready to rise up again, even in the cause of a royal bastard.”

My brow puckered in confusion. “I know what a bastard is, Uncle. It means you are born outside of marriage. My friend Guy Dunois is one. But if these two boys—who may or may not be dead—are bastards, why would anyone try to impersonate them? They cannot claim the throne even if they are alive.”

Uncle gave me an approving look. “I would not be so certain of that. Before marrying their sister, King Henry the Seventh reversed the royal decree that made her and her brothers illegitimate. So, dead they are and dead they must remain—for the good of the realm.”

My curiosity led me quickly to another question. “Why was Warbeck’s scaffold made of wine pipes and hogsheads?” I asked.

The briefest hint of a smile came over my uncle’s face. “Because the popular belief is that the king’s navy came close to capturing Warbeck before he ever landed on these shores. He eluded them, it is said, by hiding inside an empty wine barrel stowed in the prow of his ship.”

My mother’s fingers moved from her rosary to the silk sash at her waist. Her voice remained level, but the way she twisted the fine fabric around one hand betrayed her agitation. “With so much unrest in his land,” Maman said, “it is good of the king to take an interest in us.”

“Your future is not yet secure, Joan.”

“She is Jeanne,” I protested. “Jeanne Popyncourt. As I am.”

“No longer. You are in England now, my dear niece. Your mother will be known as Joan and you will be Jane, to distinguish between the two of you.”

“I do not understand,” I said.

“I will explain everything in good time, Jeanne,” Maman said.

“Jane,” Uncle insisted.

“Jane, then,” she continued. “Be patient, my child, and all will be revealed. But for the present it is best that you do not know too much.”

“And in the meantime,” my uncle interrupted, “you will both be provided for. Come. I am to take you to the king.”

“Now?” The word came out as a hoarse croak. Maman’s eyes widened in alarm.

“Now,” he insisted.

At my uncle’s urging, we gathered up our possessions and soon were aboard a wherry and headed upriver on an incoming tide. I sat between him and my mother in the pair-oared rowing boat.

The vessel’s awning kept the sun out of our faces, but it did not obscure my view. Attempting to see everything at once, I twisted from side to side on the cushioned bench. We had boarded the wherry just to the west of London Bridge and so had a good distance to travel before we passed beyond the sprawling city of London with its tall houses and multitude of church steeples. When at last we rounded the curve of the Thames, the river broadened to reveal green meadows, riverside gardens, and a dazzling array of magnificent buildings that far outshone anything the city had to offer.

“That is Westminster Abbey,” my uncle said, pointing. “And there is the great palace of Westminster, where the king is waiting for us.”

Once we disembarked my uncle escorted us to the king’s privy chamber. I caught only a glimpse of bright tapestries and grand furnishings before a liveried servant conducted us into the small complex of inner chambers beyond.

“Why is it so much darker here?” I whispered, catching hold of my mother’s sleeve.

“Hush, my darling.”

“Show some respect,” my uncle snapped. “Do you not realize what a great honor it is to be allowed to enter the king’s ‘secret’ lodgings?”

We moved briskly through one small chamber and into another. There the servant stopped before a curtained door.

“Make a deep obeisance,” my uncle instructed in a harsh whisper. “Do not speak unless spoken to. Address the king as ‘Sire’ or ‘Your Grace’ when you do speak to him. And do not forget that you must back out of the room when you are dismissed.”

My eyes wide, my lips pressed tightly closed, I crept farther into the room. Like a little mouse, I felt awed and terrified by the prospect that lay before me—my first meeting with my new liege lord.

In those days, King Henry did not stoop, as he would toward the end of his life. He was as tall as my uncle, a thin man but one who gave the impression of strength. His nose was long and thin, too. He was dressed most grandly in cloth-of-gold and crimson velvet. His black velvet bonnet, sporting a jeweled brooch and pendant pearl, sat atop reddish brown hair. It was just starting to go gray. Beneath was a clean-shaven face so exceedingly pale that the red wart on his right cheek stood out in stark contrast.

I stared at him, my mouth dropping open, as fascinated as I was awestruck. King Henry regarded us steadily in return. For a considerable time, he said nothing. Then he dismissed his servants and sent my uncle away, too.