The Kingmaker's Daughter (56 page)

GREENWICH PALACE, LONDON, MARCH 1484

Spring comes early to London, weeks earlier than in our northern home, and when I wake in the morning I can hear the cocks crowing and the dairy cows lowing as they are driven
through the streets to the meadows beside the river. With spring comes the parliament and they pass a law which recognises that Edward was married to another woman before his false wedding with the
Woodville woman, and so all their children are bastards. It is law, the parliament has passed it, and it must be so. Elizabeth Woodville is Elizabeth Woodville once again, or she can call herself
by the name of her first husband – her only true husband – and be Lady Elizabeth Grey, and her girls can cower under that name too. Richard presents his agreement with the Woodville
woman, who is released into the care of Sir John Nesfield with her two youngest girls and they go off to live in his beautiful country house at Heytesbury, Wiltshire.

He sends Richard regular reports and I have sight of one which tells of the queen – in a slip of the pen he calls her the queen, as if I did not exist, as if the law had not been passed
– riding and dancing, commanding a troop of local musicians, attending the local church, educating her girls, and interfering in the running of the home farm, changing the dairy and moving
the beehives, advising him as to the furnishing, and planting a private garden with her favourite flowers. He sounds flustered and pleased. She sounds as if she is revelling in being a country lady
once more. Her girls are running wild, Sir John has given them ponies and they are galloping all over Wiltshire. The tone of Sir John’s report is indulgent, as if he is enjoying having his
house turned upside down by a beautiful woman and two energetic girls. Most importantly he reports that she attends chapel daily and that she receives no secret messages. I should be glad that she
is neither plotting nor casting spells, but I cannot rid myself of the wish that she was still in sanctuary, or locked in the Tower like her sons, or disappeared altogether like them too. There is
no doubt in my mind that I would be at peace, that England would be at peace, if she had died with her husband or disappeared with her boys.

The three oldest Rivers girls come to court with their heads held high, as if their mother were not guilty of treason against us. Richard tells me that they will pay their respects to me in the
morning, after chapel and breakfast, and I am conscious of arranging myself in the beautiful rooms of Greenwich Palace with my back to the bright light from the windows, in a dark gown of red and a
high headdress of deep ruby lace. My ladies sit around me and the faces that they turn to the slowly opening door are not friendly. No woman wants three pretty girls beside her for comparison, and
these are Rivers girls looking for husbands, as Rivers girls always are. Besides, half the court has knelt to these girls, and the other half kissed their baby fists and swore they were the
prettiest princesses that had ever been seen. Now they are maids in waiting to a new queen, and they will never wear a crown again. Everyone is anxious that they understand their dive from grandeur
to pauperdom, and everyone secretly hopes that they will misunderstand, and make fools of themselves. It is a cruel court, as all courts are, and nobody in my rooms has any reason to love the
daughters of Elizabeth Woodville who queened it over all of us.

The door opens and the three of them come in. At once I understand why Richard forgave the mother and ordered the girls to court. It was for love of his brother. The oldest, Elizabeth, now
eighteen years old, is the most complete combination of her mother’s exquisite beauty and her father’s warmth. I would know her anywhere for Edward’s daughter. She has his easy
grace: she smiles around the room as if she thinks she is greeting friends. She has his height: she is tall and slender like a sapling from the oak tree where he was bewitched. She has his
colouring: her mother was so fair that her hair is almost silvery, but this Elizabeth is darker like her father, with hair like a wheatfield, gold and bronze, one curl escaping from her headdress
and coiling in a ringlet falling to her shoulder. I imagine that when she lets down her hair it is a tumble of honey curls.

She is wearing a gown of green as if she is spring herself, coming into this court of world-worn adults. It is a simple gown with long deep sleeves, and instead of a gold chain she has a green
leather belt knotted around her slim hips. I imagine there was no money left to buy the girls gold or jewels for them to come to court. Elizabeth Woodville may have robbed half the treasury, but
rebellions are expensive affairs and she will have spent all her money arming men against us. Her daughter, Princess Elizabeth – or, as I must remember to say, Mistress Elizabeth Grey –
wears a neat cap on her head, nothing ostentatious, nothing like the little coronet she used to wear as the favoured oldest princess of indulgent parents, and the promised bride of the heir of
France. Behind her come her sisters. Cecily is another beauty, only this Rivers girl is dark-haired and dark-eyed. She flaunts a merry smile, full of confidence, and wears a dark red that suits
her. Behind her comes little Anne, the youngest, in palest blue like the edges of a sea, fair like her eldest sister; but quiet with none of the strutting confidence of the other two.

They stand in a row before me as if they were sentries presenting their arms, and I wish to God that I could send them back to the guardroom. But they are here, and they are to be greeted not as
nieces but as wards. I rise from my throne and my ladies rise too, though the rustle of a dozen costly gowns does not trouble Elizabeth. She looks from one to another as if she would price the
material. I can feel myself flush. She was raised at court by a queen who was a famous beauty, and I don’t need to see her scornful smile to know that she finds us drab. Even I, in my ruby
gown, am a pale queen beside her memory of her mother. I know that for her, I will never be anything but a shadow.

‘I welcome you three, Mistress Elizabeth, Cecily and Anne Grey, to my court,’ I say. I see Elizabeth’s eyes flash as I give her the name of her mother’s first husband.
She will have to get used to this. Parliament itself has declared her a bastard, and her parents’ marriage a bigamous sham. She will have to get used to being called ‘Mistress
Grey’ and not ‘Your Grace’.

‘You will find me an easy queen to serve,’ I say pleasantly, as if we have never met before, as if I have not kissed their cool cheeks a dozen times. ‘And this a happy
court.’ I sit down and extend my hand and the three of them, one after another, curtsey and kiss my cold fingers.

I think the welcome has been done well enough and is over as the door opens and my husband Richard chooses this moment to come in. Of course he knows that the girls are being presented this
morning. So he has come to make sure that everything goes well. I conceal my irritation in my smile of welcome.

‘And here is the king . . .’

Nobody is listening to me. As the doors opened Elizabeth turned and when she sees my husband she rises from her curtsey and goes light-footed towards him.

‘Your Grace, my lord uncle!’ she says.

Her sisters, quick as weasels, snake after her: ‘My lord uncle,’ they chorus.

He beams at them, draws Elizabeth to him and kisses her on both cheeks. ‘Looking beautiful as I knew you would,’ he assures her. The other two get a kiss on the forehead. ‘And
how is your mother?’ he asks Elizabeth conversationally, as if he inquires after the health of a witch and a traitor every morning. ‘Does she like Heytesbury?’

She simpers. ‘She likes it well, my lord uncle!’ she says. ‘She writes to me that she is changing all the furniture and digging up the gardens. Sir John may find he has a
difficult tenant.’

‘Sir John may find his house improved beyond measure,’ he assures her, as if bold-faced impertinence needs reassurance. He turns to me: ‘You must be glad to have your nieces in
your rooms,’ he says, a tone in his voice that reminds me that I must agree.

‘I am delighted,’ I say coolly. ‘I am so delighted.’

I cannot deny that they are pretty girls. Cecily is a ninny and a gossip, Anne barely out of the schoolroom, and I see that she has lessons in Greek and Latin every day in the
morning. Elizabeth is a perfect piece of work. If you were to draw up the qualities of a Princess of England she would match the pattern. She is well read – her uncle Anthony Woodville and
her mother took care of that, she had the new printed books made by their bookmaker Caxton dedicated to her when she was barely out of the cradle. She speaks three languages fluently and can read
four. She plays musical instruments and sings with a sweet low voice of surprising quality. She can sew exquisite fine work and I believe she can turn out a shirt or hem a fine linen shift with
confidence. I have not seen her in the kitchen since I – as the daughter of the greatest earl in England, and now queen of my country – never have much cause to go into the kitchen. But
she, having been cooped up in sanctuary, and the daughter of a countrywoman, tells me that she can cook roasted meats and stewed cuts, and dainty dishes of fricassees and sweetmeats. When she
dances no-one can take their eyes off her; she moves to the music as if it is inspiring her, half-closing her eyes and letting her body respond to the notes. Everyone always wants to dance with her
because she makes any partner look graceful. When she is given a part in a play she throws herself into it and learns her lines and delivers them as if she believed them herself. She is a good
sister to the two in her care, and sends little gifts to the ones who are in Wiltshire. She is a good daughter, writing weekly to her mother. Her service to me as a lady in waiting is immaculate; I
cannot fault her.

Why then, given all these remarkable virtues, do I loathe her?

I can answer this. Firstly, because I am foolishly, sinfully, jealous of her. Of course I see how Richard watches her, as if she were his brother returned to him only as a young, hopeful, merry,
beautiful girl. He never says a word that I could criticise, he never speaks of her except as his niece. But he looks at her – indeed the whole court looks at her – as if she were a
delight to the eye that makes the heart glad.

Secondly, I think she has had an easy life, a life which makes it easy for her to laugh half a dozen times a day as if the day-to-day round is constantly amusing. A life which makes her pretty,
for what has she experienced that could make her frown? What has ever happened to her, to draw lines of disappointment on her face and lay grief in her bones? I know, I know: she has lost a father
and a beloved uncle, they have been driven from the throne, and she has lost two beloved young brothers. But I cannot remember this when I see her playing cat’s cradle with a skein of wool,
or running beside the river, or weaving daffodils into a crown for Anne as if these girls should not fear the very thought of a crown. Then she seems to me utterly carefree, and I am jealous of her
joy in life that comes so easy to her.

And lastly, I would never love a daughter of Elizabeth Woodville. I never ever will. The woman has loomed like a baleful comet on my horizon for all my life, from the moment I first saw her, and
thought her the most beautiful woman in the world at her coronation dinner, to the time that I realised that she was my inveterate enemy and the murderer of my sister and my brother-in-law.
Whatever smiling means Elizabeth took, in order to get her daughters entry to our court, nothing has charmed me, nothing will ever charm me into forgetting that they are the daughters of our enemy;
and – in the case of the Princess Elizabeth – they are the enemy themselves.

There is no doubt in my mind that she is here as a spy and a distraction. She is betrothed to Henry Tudor (her mother’s widely announced change of heart means nothing to me, and nothing
– I suspect – to him or to her). She is the daughter of our enemy and the betrothed of our enemy. Why would I not think of her as my enemy?

And so I do.

When the snow melts off the hills of the North and we can travel home again we leave London. I am so glad to go that I have to pretend reluctance for fear of offending the London merchants and
the citizens who come to court to bid farewell and the people who line the streets to cheer as we go by. I think of London as a city that loves the Rivers, and I can hear the roar of applause as
the three Woodville girls ride side by side behind me. London loves a beauty and Elizabeth’s warm prettiness makes them cheer for the House of York. I smile and wave to take the compliment
for myself but I know that for me there is the deference for a queen, but not the affection that a pretty princess can create.