Succession (10 page)

Because the queen had insisted that she would go to London to meet with the king, her chief of guards had sent scouts ahead of them, as though before battle, to an enemy army.

He had sent out three scouts, and only two had returned, one of them almost insensible with fear. The man they called Jack Cade, or John Mortimer, he said, had somehow obtained the keys to the city.

Cade’s men had taken to robbery and plunder. They had emptied the prisons and thrown the rich into them, holding them until they paid their own ransoms. The Captain, as Cade was called, rode about the city like a lord in gilded armour and a blue velvet cloak, bearing a naked sword in his hand, while all the rioting and looting spread.

There was worse news. The Bishop of Salisbury had been dragged from the altar after saying mass and had been killed by his own parishioners. They had torn his clothing to pieces and gone about waving the bloody shreds like rags.

The mob had cried for more of the king’s ‘false councillors’ to be handed over to them, so King Henry had shut certain of his lords in the Tower for safekeeping. Then he had sent his men against the mob, but the rebels had fought these men and won. And many of the king’s men had said they would rather assist the rebels, and were daily deserting the king.

Then Jack Cade, or John Mortimer, had demanded that Lord Say be brought out of the Tower, and had executed him at once, without trial. He had tied Lord Say’s feet to his own saddle and dragged him naked through the streets to London Bridge. There he had circled a great stone, beating it with his sword, before putting Lord
Say’s head on the bridge and dragging the headless body over it to Southwark, where it was hacked into quarters.

At the same time, William Crowmer, Sheriff of Kent, who had married Lord Say’s daughter, was dragged out of the Fleet prison, ‘for many crimes against the commons’, and his head stricken off. The two heads, of Lord Say and his son-in-law, were placed on long poles and carried through the streets and made to kiss several times at different places, for the entertainment of the mob.

Now it was said that the Londoners themselves had risen up against the rebels and were trying to drive them back. There was a great battle on London Bridge but ‘many a man had been slain and cast in the Thames’, and the water was bobbing with bodies.

And nobody knew where the king was. Still, the queen wished to go to him, through the streets of the city.

‘She’ll get us all killed,’ said the chief of guards’ second in command. ‘I’m not going on and neither will they.’ He jerked his head to indicate his men.

The chief of guards, a sallow, wary man, whose face was pulled into a permanent grimace, could read quite plainly the mood of his men. There would be mutiny if he ordered them forward, and his second in command would not back him up. But he could not think how to communicate this to the queen, who sat impatiently in her carriage, waiting to know the source of the delay.

‘Tell her she can go on her own,’ his second in command said. ‘They won’t be looking for an unaccompanied queen.’

The chief of guards looked at him. He was a short, squarish man. The kind of man, the chief of guards reflected, who would always take a grim pleasure in making unhelpful suggestions. He looked away from him and gazed instead towards the smoke rising from within the city walls.

After several moments, however, the queen called out sharply. When no one responded immediately, she was forced to call out again.

‘Good luck,’ said his second in command, as the chief of guards turned round slowly.

‘What is it?’ she asked before he even reached her. ‘What is this delay?’

The chief of guards paused eloquently, so that she could take in the muffled roar from beyond the gates of the city that was like the roar of the sea, punctuated by distant explosions; the dull orange glow of the sky; the smell of smoke.

‘I do not think that we can pass through the city, my lady,’ he said.

‘Of course we can,’ she said. ‘How else are we to reach the king?’

‘The disturbances,’ he said, as though she had not spoken. ‘The reports – are not good.’

‘What reports?’

He lifted his left shoulder in what was not quite a shrug. ‘My lady, there is warfare on the streets. The rebels have assailed the Tower – it is said they have fired the bridge.’

‘Who says this?’ she demanded, then when he did not reply she said, ‘You are armed men, are you not?’

‘Yes, but –’

‘You are on horseback – you can ride them down, trample them back into the dirt from which they came. That, in fact,’ she said, ‘is what you do, is it not?’

The chief of guards turned his face slightly away from her and paused again, weighing his words carefully.

‘No one knows how many of them there are … Some say there are many thousands.’

‘And?’

‘My men – are reluctant to go ahead – in the circumstances.’

She looked at him as if she could not believe what she was hearing.

‘They will not go to help their king?’

The chief of guards shook his head slightly, still without looking at her.

‘I do not think that his majesty would want me to risk so many lives – especially not yours, my lady.’

‘Do I have to go on alone?’

‘My lady,’ the chief of guards said, turning towards her, ‘that would not be wise.’

She stood with a sudden, violent movement. The chief of guards did not move. He knew that he could not lay hands on the queen or manhandle her back into the carriage, but he spoke rapidly and with urgency.

‘Your majesty – you will not get so far as the gates. And if anyone sees you – anything could happen. The king would not wish it, my lady.’

He was standing in front of her as though he would obstruct her, and staring very directly into her eyes. The queen was forced to pause, but she still looked as though she would climb down from the carriage.

‘Warfare is won by the wise,’ he said. ‘It is not wisdom to approach a blood-crazed mob – how will I tell the king if anything happens to you? He needs to know you are safe. This is not helping the king, my lady,’ he added as she moved forward. ‘How will it help his majesty if you risk your life in this way? It will only help his enemies.’

She stopped then, glaring at him.

‘Think of his majesty,’ he said. ‘It would break his heart.’

She closed her eyes for a moment, then released a stream of impassioned French, so rapid that the chief of guards could only pick out certain words –
traitors
,
cowards
,
scum
– that he chose to believe were referring to the rebels.

‘My lady, I will find lodgings for you – just for the night. In the morning, all this –’ he gestured towards the city – ‘may have died down and we can try again.’

For a long moment she did not move, then all at once she collapsed backwards into her seat. He could feel the fury and disbelief bristling from her. She spoke in a low, shaking voice. ‘What do they imagine is their grievance, these – traitors?’

The chief of guards hardly knew where to begin: the loss of all the towns and castles of Normandy; the return of soldiers in such great misery and poverty that all they could do was steal and attack the poor people of the countryside; the corruption of all those officers who dealt with the law; extortion and rapine.

Fortunately, the queen did not seem to require an answer.

‘In my other country,’ she said, ‘they would be strung up and whipped in the marketplaces, and then have their limbs struck off one by one.’

The chief of guards inclined his head. He did not doubt it.

‘There is nothing to be gained by pressing forward now,’ he said. ‘I will find you lodgings for the night. And in the morning we will try again.’

Then, reluctant or unable to pursue the discussion further, he returned to his horse, mounted it and rode back towards his men. If she got out of the carriage while he was not looking there was nothing he could do.
I will resign my command
, he thought.

He reissued his orders to his men as though he had not lost command of them, as though they had not refused outright to enter the city. He told them that they would ride to a place six miles away, where they would find lodgings for the queen and where they could set up camp. His second in command pulled his own horse up alongside him.

‘And she has agreed to this, has she?’ he said.

‘She would have gone on alone.’

‘And you stopped her? That would have saved us all some trouble.’

The chief of guards said nothing to this, only spurring his horse forward so he could check that the queen was still in the carriage. His second in command eyed his retreating back resentfully. ‘French bitch,’ he said, and spat.

But he marshalled his men together and they followed the carriage away from the heat and clamour of the city.

After the wooden bridge was set on fire the men of Kent withdrew, little by little. Their captain put all his pillage and the goods that he had robbed into a barge and sent it to Rochester by water, and he went by land and would have gone to the castle of Queenborough with the few men that were left with him, but he failed in his purpose. And so he fled into the countryside near Lewes …

An English Chronicle

 

And that day was that false traitor the Captain of Kent taken and slain in the county of Sussex, and upon the morrow he was brought in a cart all naked and at the White Hart in Southwark the cart drew to a halt so that the wife of that house might see if it was the same man that was named the Captain of Kent who had lodged there. And from there he was taken to the King’s Bench and there he lay from Monday evening to the Thursday following, and within the King’s Bench the said captain was beheaded and quartered, and the same day drawn upon a hurdle in pieces, with the head between his chest, from the King’s Bench throughout Southwark and then over London Bridge, and then through London unto Newgate, and then his head was taken and set upon London Bridge …

And the same year the king was at Canterbury, and with him was the Duke of Exeter, the Duke of Somerset, my Lord of Shrewsbury with many more lords and many justices and they held sessions for four days and condemned many of the Captain’s men for the uprising and for talking against the king and for favouring the Duke of York over the king. And the condemned men were drawn, hanged and beheaded … and at Rochester nine men were beheaded and their heads were sent to London by the king’s commandment and set upon London Bridge all at one time, and twelve more heads were brought at another time … and at other times more. Men called it in Kent the harvest of heads …

 

Gregory’s Chronicle

 

And about the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Mary [August 1450] the town of Cherbourg surrendered to the King of France and so the whole of Normandy was lost; which was an irreparable disaster for England. And the Duke of Somerset came back to England when he had ruined the whole of Normandy …

John Benet’s Chronicle

 

She recognized the seal at once on the letter he was reading: it had been sent by the abbot of Gloucester.

‘Your old friend,’ the Duchess of York said, sitting beside her husband.

‘He would be my friend now if he could.’

‘It’s a little late for that.’

Nothing. She looked more searchingly at his face.

‘What does he want?’

Again he did not reply. It worried her that he did not reply.

‘I do not suppose he is sending you any of the money that the king owes you …’

Silence.

‘… nor enquiring after your health. Perhaps his own coffers are so depleted that he wants you to send money to him? No? Well then, let me see.’

She leaned forward. ‘He wants you to return to England to help him and the king out of some godforsaken mess – yes – I can see that is it.’

The duke did not like his wife’s mood. He moved the letter away from her.

‘Should I disappoint him?’

‘You are not serious.’

The duke didn’t smile.

‘Richard – you cannot go.’

‘Somerset is back.’

‘All the more reason to stay away.’

He picked up the letter and read: ‘
They are saying that from the
time that Jack Cade or Mortimer, called Captain of Kent, raised a rebellion in Kent, all disturbances are at the will of York, who is descended from the Mortimers.
’

She did not flinch. ‘It is not safe for you to go.’

‘Somerset will not rest until I am indicted for treason.’

‘You are needed here.’

‘He drips poison in the king’s ear.’

‘Listen to me,’ she said. ‘You have served the king loyally and well. No other lieutenant in Ireland has done so much – and all without one penny from the royal coffers. Somerset has lost all of Normandy – he is the one who should be impeached. But if you leave this country now the king will think you are breaking the terms of your commission –’

‘My exile, you mean.’

‘– and if you enter England with all your men he will think you are declaring war.’

He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I could go without my men.’

‘You cannot! Richard – you will not!’

‘If I stay I am condemned behind my back.’

‘If you go you will be condemned in court – to death. Or just killed. That would suit them.’

He shook his head. ‘It is not often said that an Englishman is safer in Ireland.’

‘But you have friends here. And your family.’

He did have friends. Even among the Irish lords. The parliament in Dublin had been advancing him funds in the absence of any money from the king. Cecily had made her home here; their son George had been born in Dublin less than a year ago. Still, it was not safe enough to leave her here. Anyway, she would not be left. And he would not take her with him, into a death trap.

‘Ireland needs you,’ she was saying. ‘Your children need you. And I need you. You cannot go – I will not allow it.’

‘You will not allow it?’

‘I will go first.’

Despite himself, he almost laughed. ‘You will go? How will that help?’

‘I will not stay here and let you walk to your death.’ She put an imploring hand on his arm. ‘Richard, you owe this abbot nothing. You cannot just go – at least write to the king first.’

He had written many times without response. His last letter had been written to his brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, instructing him to read it aloud in parliament. That would have annoyed the king still further, he thought.

‘At least ask for the king’s permission to leave your post. Assure him of your allegiance – your goodwill. Offer to help. He may not respond, but he cannot ignore it. I will write it, if you like.’

‘You will not write it.’

‘Then I will read it. Yes, Richard, there is a time for wrath and a time for conciliation. Do not vex the king at the moment. He is like a fox trapped in a hole.’

He gave her a long, considering look, then said, ‘I will write to him. But you need not read it.’

The duchess raised her eyes briefly to heaven. They both knew that the duke was not good with words. Then she said, ‘Do not mention the Duke of Somerset for now.’

There was only a hint of irony in the look the duke gave her as he took some paper from a drawer.

‘You may leave me to write the letter,’ he said.