The Kingmaker's Daughter (15 page)

‘I named him as a bastard to make me the next heir to the throne,’ George shouts. ‘We were fighting to put
me
on the throne. We discredited Edward to prove
my
claim. We never discredited my house, we never slandered York! We never said that anyone should be king but me!’

‘It couldn’t be done,’ my father says with mild regret as if speaking of a battle that was lost long, long ago, in a country far away, rather than England, and only this
spring. ‘We tried it twice, George, you know. Edward was too strong for us, there were too many people on his side. But with Queen Margaret in alliance with us she will bring out half of
England, all the old Lancaster lords will flock to us, the Lancaster gentry who have never taken to your brother. She has always been strong in the North and Midlands. Jasper Tudor will bring out
Wales for her. Edward will never be able to defeat an alliance of you and me and Margaret of Anjou.’

It is so strange to me to hear her name no longer cursed but cited as an ally – I used to have nightmares about this woman, yet now she is to be our trusted friend.

‘Now,’ my father says. ‘You, Anne, have to go with your mother and meet the seamstresses. Isabel, you can go too, you are all to have new gowns for Anne’s
betrothal.’

‘My betrothal?’

He smiles as if he thinks to give me the greatest joy. ‘Betrothed now, and then the wedding as soon as we have the permission from the Pope.’

‘I am to be betrothed straightaway?’

‘The day after tomorrow.’

ANGERS CATHEDRAL, 25 JULY 1470

There are two silent figures at the high altar in the cathedral, handfast, plighting their troth. A light from the great window behind them illuminates their grave faces. They
incline towards each other as if they are promising love as well as loyalty to death. They hold each other close, as if to be certain of each other. Someone watching might think this a love match
from the intensity of their gaze and the closeness of their pose.

It is those great enemies, my father and Margaret of Anjou, side by side. This is the great union; her son and I will merely enact with our bodies this plighting of our parents. First she puts
her hand on a fragment of the True Cross – the real cross brought here from the kingdom of Jerusalem – and even from the back of the cathedral I can hear her clear voice reciting an
oath of loyalty to my father. Then it is his turn. He puts his hand on the cross and she adjusts it, making sure that every part of his palm and his fingers are on the sacred wood as if, even now,
in the very act of swearing their alliance, she doesn’t trust him. He recites his oath, then they turn to one another and give each other the kiss of reconciliation. They are allies, they
will be allies till death, they have sworn a sacred oath, nothing can part them.

‘I can’t do it,’ I whisper to Isabel. ‘I can’t marry her son, I can’t be a daughter to the bad queen, to the sleeping king. What if their son is as mad as
everyone says? What if he murders me, orders me beheaded as he did to the two York lords who guarded his father? They say he is a monster, with blood on his hands from childhood. They say he kills
men for sport. What if they cut off my head as they did our grandfather’s?’

‘Hush,’ she says, taking my cold hands in hers and rubbing them gently. ‘You’re talking like a child. You have to be brave. You’re going to be a
princess.’

‘I can’t be in the House of Lancaster!’

‘You can,’ she says. ‘You have to be.’

‘You once said that you were afraid that our father used you as a pawn.’

She shrugs. ‘Did I?’

‘Used you as a pawn and might let you fall.’

‘If you are going to be Queen of England he won’t let you fall,’ she observes shrewdly. ‘If you are going to be Queen of England he will love you and serve you every
moment of the day. You’ve always been his pet – you should be glad that now you are the centre of his ambition.’

‘Izzy,’ I say quietly. ‘You were the centre of his ambition when he nearly drowned you at sea.’

Her face is almost greenish in the dim light of the church. ‘I know,’ she says bleakly.

I hesitate at this, and our mother comes up and says briskly, ‘I am to present you to Her Grace the queen.’

I follow her up the long aisle of the cathedral, the dazzling stained-glass window making a carpet of colour beneath my feet, as if I were walking over the sun in splendour. It strikes me it is
the second time that my mother has presented me to a Queen of England. The first time I saw the most beautiful woman I have ever known. This time: the most ferocious. The queen sees me coming,
turns towards us and waits, with a killer’s patience, for me to reach the chancel steps. My mother sinks into a deep curtsey and I go down too. When I come up I see a short plump woman,
magnificently gowned in cloth-of-gold brocade, a towering headdress on her head draped in gold lace, a gold belt slung low around her broad hips.

Her round face is stern, her rosebud mouth unsmiling. ‘You are Lady Anne,’ she says in French.

I bow my head. ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘You are to marry my son, and you will be my daughter.’

I bow again. Clearly, this is not an inquiry as to my happiness. When I look at her again her face is bright as gold with triumph. ‘Lady Anne, you are only a young woman now, a nobody; but
I am going to make you Queen of England and you will sit on my throne and wear my crown.’

‘Lady Anne has been prepared for such a position,’ my mother says.

The queen ignores her. She steps forwards and takes both my hands between hers, as if I am swearing fealty to her. ‘I will teach you to be a queen,’ she says quietly. ‘I will
teach you what I know of courage, of leadership. My son will be king but you will stand beside him, ready to defend the throne with your life, you will be a queen as I have been – a queen who
can command, who can rule, who can make alliances and hold to them. I was just a girl, not much older than you, when I first came to England and I learned quickly enough that to hold the throne of
England you have to cleave to your husband and fight for his throne, night and day, Anne. Night and day. I will hammer you into a sword for England, just as I was hammered into a blade. I will
teach you to be a dagger at the throat of treason.’

I think of the horrors that this queen unleashed on the country with her court favourites and her ambition. I think of my father swearing that the king had flung himself into a sleep like death
because he could not bear waking life with her. I think of the years when my father ruled England and this woman raged in Scotland, raising an army which came south like a band of brigands,
half-naked, stealing, raping and murdering wherever they went until the country swore that they would have no more of this queen, and the citizens of London closed their gates to her and begged her
best friend Jacquetta Woodville to tell her to take the army of the North back to their home.

Something of this shows in my face for she laughs shortly, and says to me: ‘It is easy to be squeamish when you are a girl. It is easy to be principled when you have nothing. But when you
are a woman and you have a son destined for the throne, after years of waiting, and when you are a queen and you want to keep your crown, you will be ready to do anything; anything. You will be
ready to kill for it: kill innocents if need be. And you will be glad then that I have taught you all that I know.’ She smiles at me. ‘When you can do anything – anything –
to keep your throne and keep your crown and keep your husband where he should be, then you will know that you have learned from me. Then you will be my daughter indeed.’

She repels me, she absolutely terrifies me. I dare say nothing.

She turns to the high altar. I see a slight figure standing beside my father: Prince Edward. There is a bishop before him with his missal open at the page of the marriage service.

‘Come,’ the bad queen says. ‘This is your first step, I will guide all the others.’ She takes me by the hand and leads me towards him.

I am fourteen years old, the daughter of an arraigned traitor in exile with a price on his head. I am about to be betrothed to a boy nearly three years older than me, the son of the most
terrifying woman England has ever known, and through this marriage my father will bring her back into England like the wolf that they call her. And from this moment I will have to call this monster
my mother.

I glance back at Isabel, who seems a long way away. She tries to smile encouragingly at me but her face is strained and pale in the darkness of the cathedral. I remember her saying to me on her
wedding night: ‘Don’t go.’ I mouth the words to her and then I turn and walk towards my father to do his bidding.

AMBOISE, FRANCE, WINTER 1470

I cannot believe the life that is unfolding before me. In the cold light of the winter mornings I wake beside Isabel and have to lie still and look around the stone walls of
the room and the tapestries, dull-coloured in the early light, to remind myself of where I am, how far we have come, and my dazzling incredible future. Then I tell myself once more: I am Anne of
Warwick; still me. I am betrothed to Prince Edward of Lancaster, I am Princess of Wales while the old king lives, and on his death I will be Queen Anne of England.

‘You’re muttering again,’ Isabel says crossly. ‘Muttering like a mad old woman. Shut up, you sound ridiculous.’

I press my lips together to silence myself. This has become my ritual, as regularly observed as Prime. I cannot start the day without running through the changes in my life. It is as if I cannot
believe that I am here, without reciting my expectations, my unbelievable hopes. First I open my eyes and see again that I am in one of the best rooms of the beautiful chateau of Amboise. In this
fairytale castle we are the guests of the man who was once our greatest enemy: Louis King of France, now our greatest friend. I am betrothed to marry the son of the bad queen and the sleeping king,
only now I must always remember to call her Lady Mother, and him, my royal father: King Henry. Isabel is not to be Queen of England, George is not to be king. She will be my chief lady in waiting
and I am to be queen. Most extraordinary of all, Father has already taken England by storm, marched on London, released the sleeping king – King Henry – from the Tower, taken him out
before the people and had him loudly proclaimed as King of England, returned to his people, restored to his throne. The people welcome this. Incredulously, in France, we learn to celebrate the
triumph of Lancaster, say ‘our house’ when we mean the red rose, reverse all the loyalties of my life.

Queen Elizabeth, in terror of the open enmity of my father, has fled into sanctuary and is in hiding with her mother and her daughters, pregnant with another child, abandoned by her husband. It
does not matter now if she has a boy, a girl, or the miscarriage that George wished on her – her son will never sit on the throne of England, for the House of York is utterly thrown down. She
is cowering in sanctuary, and her husband, the handsome and once-powerful King Edward, our friend, our former hero, has fled from England like a coward, accompanied only by his loyal brother
Richard and half a dozen others, and they are kicking their heels and fearing for their futures somewhere in Flanders. Father will make war on them there, next year. He will hunt them down and kill
them like the outlaws they now are.

The queen who was so beautiful in her triumph, who was so steely in her dislike, is back to where she started, a penniless widow with no prospects. I should be glad, this is my revenge for the
thousands of slights that she paid to Isabel and me, but I cannot help but think of her, and wonder how she will survive childbirth in the dark rooms of sanctuary beneath Westminster Abbey, and how
she will ever get out?

Father has won England – he has returned to his irresistible winning form. George was faithfully at his side throughout the campaign, despite the temptations to treachery from the House of
York, and Father has done all that he said he would do. I am to join him, as soon as Prince Edward and I are married; we wait only for a dispensation from the Pope to confirm our betrothal. As a
young husband and wife, we will join Father in England, and we will be proclaimed Prince and Princess of Wales. I will be at the side of Queen Margaret of Anjou; she is my mentor and my guide. They
will send Queen Elizabeth’s ermines from the wardrobe once again, only this time they will stitch them on my gowns.