Succession (6 page)

And in the year 1448 on the day of St George, the earl [of Somerset] was made Duke of Somerset and about Pentecost the Earl of Suffolk was made Duke of Suffolk.

John Benet’s Chronicle

 

The queen had asked to see him in private.

There was nothing unusual in this, given the recent crisis. These days, the new Duke of Somerset was almost permanently in the company of the queen. The king had finally ordered the governor of Maine and Anjou to evacuate those territories, but he had refused, saying that he did not think the letters were valid. There had been scenes of rejoicing in Maine, and riots in London, where the king’s unpopularity was such that his council had decided to send him around the country. The king himself had suggested that he should go to France, but they did not trust him there. All the preparations had been made for him to tour the north of England, but then he had suffered a reactive melancholy. His face was sunken, his eyes haunted. He had taken to spending even more hours in his chapel, or playing with a staff, to one end of which a bird had been tethered. He was mesmerized, apparently, by its struggling upwards dance.

The Duke of Somerset had been made Lieutenant of France, but he had not sailed yet, because of the difficulty with that country and because the queen needed him. The king had not yet set off on his tour, no agreement could be reached with the French and the queen was in despair.

And York had not sailed to Ireland. He had petitioned the king
many times for money, and rumour had it that he was preparing to mortgage his lands and would soon be bankrupt. So there were many reasons for the new duke to be cheerful as he went, wearing his ducal robes, to keep his appointment with the queen. It had even occurred to him that she might want to discuss the question of the succession.

No one else had been named heir since Gloucester had been gone. York was the obvious choice, but the king and queen did not like York. They liked him, Somerset.

However different they were, and they
were
different – he retreating into sanctity, she like a caged beast – this much could be said: there was no disagreement about the people they liked, who were beloved by them, for they loved like children do, with that same terrifying openness and disregard. There was no limit to their affection, or to their generosity.

And even though it was a sensitive issue, it was not the worst time to broach this subject with the queen, because the king would agree with her. In his present state, it could be taken for granted that he would agree to most things.

So the new duke entered the queen’s privy chamber with confidence, but was disconcerted to find her with her hair unbound, wearing only a simple gown over her chemise, which parted as she moved. She stood a few paces away from him, her eyes anxious, her face taut.

‘My husband the king is unwell,’ she said when he did not speak.

The duke made a movement as if to leave. ‘I must go to him,’ he said. ‘I will see what I can do. He should be here, with you.’

‘No, wait,’ she said, stepping closer, so that her gown parted again. ‘He does not want company – he cannot bear it. He – does not want to be touched.’

Ah
, thought the duke. All the rumours he had heard were true. And he had thought of it before, of course he had. She had made her preference for him quite plain.

Now she was standing very close and, without looking at him directly, she touched him, her hands moving awkwardly to his chest, his face, his lips.

Unexpectedly, he felt a terrible pity for her, because her touch
told him what she had not said, that she did not know how to touch a man; that she was a young, beautiful woman in a hostile land and her husband could not permit himself to desire her; that in the cold, pure air of his chastity she would know neither the heat of love nor motherhood.

It confused him, this compassion, for he was not easily moved to sympathy. In a fleeting moment he could see it all: unclothing her, she raising her hips to his, then bearing his child, his son, who would be heir to the throne.

Also he could see himself, hanged, drawn and quartered for treason. The king was not vengeful, but the duke had many enemies at court.

So much time can pass in a single moment!

He lowered his face to her scented hair, knowing as he did so that this was the single most dangerous moment of his career. Briefly, he wondered whether it was more dangerous to offend a queen or a king. Beneath the scent he could detect another odour, sharp and sour. He enclosed her hands in his, removing them gently from his face. Then he murmured, ‘My lady, you are afraid.’

She stood absolutely still for a moment, and neither of them spoke. Then, subtly, he could feel her withdraw.

‘Why should you not be afraid?’ he continued. ‘The king is sick, and the nation also, and you are their queen. All you want is to heal them. But you do not know how.’

She was pulling away from him, mortified by his presence. Nothing would ever be the same again between them. Greatly daring, he moved her hair from her face, as a lover might.

‘This is your country, and you are its queen.’

She was listening to him, and she didn’t move. But he had absolutely no idea what he was going to say next.

‘Our lives are not our own,’ he said, somewhat desperately. ‘They are not ours to give – you have already given yours to this country.’

It was true. By sheer accident of fortune, he had hit upon a truth. There had been a moment, in all the hours of the coronation, when she had known it, a moment of piercing knowledge: this was her country, she was its queen
.

She had learned its language, studied its history and its laws. She had travelled the length of it, with her husband the king. It was not her fault that its people hated her.

There it was again, this strange wringing of his heart. Somerset fell to his knees and clasped her, then looked up at her, his face brimming with emotion.

‘I cannot take what is not yours to give –’

She looked at him, then away. She spoke slowly. ‘This country,’ she said, ‘hates me, and would be well rid of me.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘The people need you. They need your courage and your dignity and –’ he hesitated only for a moment – ‘your loyalty. The king needs you. And I need you,’ he added. ‘I need you.’

Again, it was true. He was quite unaccustomed to this discovery of unfamiliar truths. But there it was. He needed her.

For several moments he felt as though she were seeing right through him with her piercing stare. But for once he had nothing to hide. And her shame had shifted, he could sense that. He released her as she made a movement away.

‘According to the people,’ she said, ‘I am leading a most interesting life.’

‘No one who knows you would think such a thing.’

‘But they think it. And they think I am in collusion with my father and my uncle against them. They think that I cannot give them an heir. My husband … prefers to sleep on his chapel floor. Do you know that?’

Somerset could only hang his head. ‘My lady –’ he said, but could think of nothing else to say. He had ruined everything, he thought, he had destroyed the relationship between them. But he knew better than to beg her forgiveness.

She was speaking again, as though to herself, or to the wall.

‘The king … is preparing to leave,’ she said, as if rehearsing lines. ‘I must go to him.’

Still looking towards the floor, Somerset shook his head. ‘My lady –’ he said, but she interrupted him.

‘Come, my lord,’ she said. ‘You must not wear out your knees.’

He looked up at her, hardly daring to hope, but she extended her hand to him with a resigned smile. He got up clumsily, with none of his usual elegance, and looked at her earnestly. ‘Your majesty –’ he said, but she made a small sound, a gesture, to silence him.

‘“Our lives are not our own,”’ she said, quoting him.

It was over then. He left her rooms without knowing how much damage he had or had not done, knowing that he had made a choice, of sorts, though it had not felt like a choice. Later, he would look on it as a choice of good over evil, which is to say that he regretted it deeply in some part of his mind. In that moment he could only walk a little way along the corridor, and then rest against the wall, profoundly shaken by what had happened, and by his response. Especially by his response, because it had revealed something about himself that he had not previously known.

And after that the Duke of Somerset went to Normandy with 2,000 men.

Chronicles of London

 

Around the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, almost thirty towns with their castles were lost … on the 29th October [1449] Rouen was taken in an assault by the King of France, who captured the Earl of Shrewsbury and others while the Duke of Somerset fled to Caen. Besides this the said king took the town of Harfleur and the land of Anjou in Maine, and all the land in Normandy across the river Seine.

John Benet’s Chronicle

 

In this year, despite the truce prevailing between England and France, an English knight, Francis de Surienne, took a town in Normandy called Fougères; and this was the occasion for the French to take the whole of Normandy.

Brut Chronicle

 

The clerk of the Privy Seal [Adam Moleyns] was killed at Portsmouth by soldiers and sailors, whom the king pardoned because the said bishop before his death accused himself and the Duke of Suffolk and others of being traitors to the crown.

John Benet’s Chronicle

 

Her first thought was for her son, of course.

When her husband turned to her for reassurance, as was his custom, she made all the expected responses. He said that he would be blamed for the losses in Normandy, and she asked in what sense, exactly, was he to blame? It would not happen; he should not think such a thing. How could he possibly be accused of treason, when he had never been anything other than faithful to the king?

Privately, she considered it more than likely.

Accordingly, without mentioning it to her husband, she had already written to one or two of her cousins on her mother’s side. Relations between her husband and the Burghersh family had cooled considerably in recent months, so she wrote a conciliatory letter, saying little, testing the ground. She had expressed the hope that one of their younger sons would soon be presented at court for preferment.

When there was no reply, her suspicions were confirmed. The Burghersh family were connected to the Nevilles, as she was, and through them to the Duke of York. They did not wish, now, to be associated with the Duke of Suffolk.

She had gone on to consider their other connections like pieces on a chessboard. It seemed to her that none of them would stand in the current situation; they were all drawing away from the duke.

However, it also seemed to her that, should certain conditions change, she could write again to her Burghersh cousins. If she were alone, for instance, they might be relied upon to take her and her son, because she still had all her own estates.

The duke was now enumerating all those lords who stood against him, who would like to see him fall. His face was quite contorted; Lady Alice could not help but consider how fear makes men ugly.

Also, she remembered her father, son of the greatest poet in the land. He was no poet himself, but he was fond of his similes and metaphors.

‘Warfare,’ he used to say, ‘exposes what is hidden in a man’s soul. Much as hanging, drawing and quartering exposes his guts
.
’

But she should not be thinking about warfare. Surely it would not come to that.

‘My lord,’ she said, ‘you distress yourself. You must remember that you have only ever acted on behalf of the king.’

The Duke of Suffolk stopped pacing and wiped his sweating face.

‘They say,’ he said, ‘that I have acted
instead
of the king.’

‘That is nonsense,’ she said. ‘What has happened is due entirely to the incompetence of the Duke of Somerset. You cannot be blamed for that. Such situations pass,’ she added. ‘The important thing is to consider what might happen then.’

‘Then –?’

‘There will be a great shaking up of things,’ she said, just as if she could see the outcome precisely. ‘We have to consider the possibilities.’

She was speaking more to herself now. ‘One is that they will turn against the king.’

He was watching her closely.

‘Another is that the king will save his position by making certain radical changes in his government.’

‘And then we lose everything,’ he said. ‘All lands and manors, titles –’

‘I shall keep my father’s estates,’ she said. ‘And my mother’s.’

He looked at her, fascinated. ‘Are there any further options?’ he asked, with only a touch of irony.

She glanced at him quickly. Both of them knew the third option was that the duke would not survive. But she could tell from the look on his face that he had not expected her to know this.

‘In either case,’ she said decisively, ‘we need to consider what happens afterwards.’

That word, ‘afterwards’, seemed suddenly the wrong word to use. She did not look at the duke, but she could sense his horror deepening into outrage. He said nothing for several moments while she chided herself for her uncharacteristic clumsiness.

‘My lady’s foresight is impressive,’ he said at length. ‘I have often had reason to be grateful for it.’

She would not dignify this with a response. None of this mess was her doing.

‘Tell me your plans for “afterwards”.’

She turned to him then. ‘I am talking about your
son
,’ she said, and he made a gesture to indicate that she should carry on.

She said that now was the time to consider his marriage – to their little ward, Margaret Beaufort. It would tie them more closely to the king, and although (as she did not say) the king’s future was by no means certain, if he survived this crisis in his reign, their son’s position would be strengthened.

‘It would be different if the king had an heir,’ she said, and let the sentence hang. For little Margaret was second cousin to the king. And the Duke of Somerset, who in theory had a greater claim, was now in an unsafe position because of the disasters in France.

The Duke of Suffolk listened to her without changing the expression on his face. It was as though he were listening to something else, beneath the surface of her words. She turned away from him uneasily.

They had discussed this plan before; she had raised the issue several times. He had always found some reason to delay – until their son was older, or until he had been granted this or that title. Or until the king had a daughter, though he did not say this. But, now, he had to see that the time of waiting was over. Their son would need the best connections they could make for him. And if the king did not survive this crisis, the marriage would add significantly to his estates and wealth. It was time to assert their rights of wardship – before anything else was lost.

When she looked back at the duke he was gathering his papers and putting on his spectacles.

‘My lord?’ she said. He did not look up.

‘You must do as you think best,’ he said.

‘So I have your permission to write to her mother?’ she said.

‘My permission?’ he replied, gazing at her over his spectacles. ‘I’m sure you can manage without that.’

‘So – you do not agree.’

She had never before seen such hostility in his eyes.

‘I think it is the best possible plan, given the circumstances,’ he said in low, even tones. ‘And you must make your plans, my dear. For
afterwards
.’

There it was. The naked revelation between them.

She turned away. If she had spoken, she might have started blaming him. She herself was not going to take any blame for looking ahead, to her son’s future. One of them had to retain the ability to think.

She turned back to him, willing to appease, but he had already gone. And she had said just one wrong word: ‘afterwards’
.
After all these years of saying only the right words! She was sick of saying the right words. Like a courtier. How many wives could teach their husbands how to speak at court?

A little discomposed, she sat at her desk. Her heart was beating faster than usual, but it was not her custom to pay attention to her heart.

She selected a pair of the spectacles she had only recently acquired to correct her vision. Recently, she had found she could see clearly only from a distance – anything close to her was somewhat blurred. There was a metaphor for you, she thought, sharpening her quill. For even as a child she had tended to think in the long term rather than the present, as if the present were vague and only future possibilities seemed real. It was a trait that had carried her through most of the crises in her life: the deaths of two husbands, and (she did not add to herself) what might be the imminent loss of a third.

Distance vision was an appropriate metaphor for her perspective
on life; she had often thought that she, rather than her father, might have inherited her grandfather’s abilities. In other circumstances, perhaps, she might have been a poet, like him; she was sure he would have approved. Instead of which, she was the patron of poets.

Still, she could write a good letter. Dipping her quill, she began to write to the mother of her ward, in order to arrange the future of her son.

On the day of St Vincent the Martyr, a parliament began in which everybody complained to the king about the Duke of Suffolk, hearing which the iniquitous duke came into parliament before the commons, excusing himself of many charges. And on the same day the iniquitous duke sought permission from the king to retire to his estate of Wallingford which he kept in the best manner, but all the commons complained to the king, saying that if the iniquitous duke was allowed to go, the whole of England would be destroyed by his evil plans and deceptions, because he was a traitor to the crown … And so on the 29th day of January the evil duke was arrested and taken to the Tower of London.

John Benet’s Chronicle