The Last Plantagenets (49 page)

In most descriptions her hair is called “gilt” in color, which meant
undoubtedly that it had tints of copper as well as gold. Her eyes were large and blue, her features delicately molded, her figure ravishing. She proceeded to demonstrate, moreover, that she was gifted in the arts of enticement and could stir any masculine heart by the flutter of an eyelash. Certainly she played havoc with the heart beating under the velvet riding jacket of royal Edward.

His surrender to her was immediate and complete. He not only restored Bradgate to her but continued with great regularity to meet her under the same oak tree. He made every effort to convince the fair Elizabeth that she might reasonably agree to a closer relationship between them but found her adamant in her refusal.

“My liege,” she is reported to have said, “full well I know I am not good enough to be your queen. But ah, dear liege lord, I am far too good to become your mistress.”

That irresistible squire of dames, the king, passed through many stages of baffled feelings over this denial of his amorous plans. With great reluctance, it may be assumed, he finally offered her marriage. In the chronicle of Fabyan, the result was recorded as follows:

In most secret manner, upon the first of May, 1464, king Edward espoused Elizabeth, late being wife of Sir John Gray. Which espousailles was solemnized early in the morning at the town called Grafton near to Stoney-Stratford. At which marriage was none present but the spouse, the spousesse, the duchess of Bedford, her mother, the priest and two gentlemen and a young man who helped the priest to sing.

The next day the bride’s father, who now held the title of Lord Rivers, received word from the king that he was coming to pay him a visit. Edward remained four days, and the artful Jaquetta arranged matters so skillfully that the king spent each night with Elizabeth and never a word of scandal was raised. Even the father of the bride was kept in the dark.

Finally, of course, the truth had to come out. On Michaelmas Day of that year, Edward brought together a number of the peers in the palace at Reading and acknowledged Elizabeth openly as his wife. Later in the day the new consort was publicly declared queen in the abbey and received the vows of allegiance of all the peers present, including the Earl of Warwick. The latter was seething with indignation, but apparently he concealed the fact for the time being. Clearly the Kingmaker was disturbed over the inevitable rupture in relations with the King of France because of the rejection of the match arranged with the fair Bona. Nevertheless he knelt before the lovely bride and kissed her hand with proper respect. He was even assiduous in the attentions he paid her.

Elizabeth was attired on this great occasion in gold brocade of garter blue, with robings of ermine fitted over her slender shoulders. Her golden hair had been left free and hung in shimmering ringlets to her knees. A queen in appearance, most certainly, even though commoner blood flowed in her veins.

The marriage was deeply resented by the members of the older nobility. They seem to have realized, even at this early date, that the rapacity of the Woodville family would now be openly manifested. At the brilliant tournaments and court functions which followed the announcement, the glowing queen was surrounded by her younger sisters, all nearly as lovely as she and all anxious to acquire noble and wealthy husbands. Not far in the background were her tall and handsome brothers. In October the queen’s sister Margaret was married to Thomas, Lord Maltravers, the heir of the Earl of Arundel. Her sister Mary was awarded a matrimonial plum in the person of William Herbert, who later succeeded his father as Earl of Pembroke. The other sisters all married well. The greatest indignation was aroused when the thrice-married dowager Duchess of Norfolk, a skittish lady of nearly eighty, took the queen’s brother John as her fourth husband. John was twenty years old, but he was agreeable to the match. Everywhere the match was derided as this “diabolical marriage,” but the Woodvilles smiled and shrugged their shoulders. The raddled beldam was rich—very, very rich.

Finally Elizabeth’s father, handsome sire of these handsome schemers, was promoted to the rank of earl, and at that the wrath of the baronage rose to a fever pitch.

The Kingmaker was no longer a power in the realm and, like Achilles, he sulked in his tent. Very soon thereafter, things reached a stage of tension which led to the second half of the Wars of the Roses. It seems quite possible that, except for the expert fluttering of a pair of long eyelashes one spring day in the forest of Whittlebury, the country would have remained at peace and many terrible battles would never have been fought.

For more than four years after the announcement of the king’s marriage, during which the queen’s family became dominant at court, Warwick withdrew largely from active co-operation with Edward. He was furious, of course, at the way his power had been taken from him and he cordially hated the Woodvilles. His character changed noticeably in this brief
space of time. In place of the affability and openhandedness which had made him so popular, he became morose and critical. He even changed in appearance. His face no longer wore its customary smile and in its place was a suspicious scowl.

He still had friends in all parts of the kingdom, however, and throughout these years there were continuous irruptions in various parts of the country. They did not come to the point of open insurrection, but it was apparent that the men behind them were friends of the Kingmaker. Wherever they went they would shout, “A Warwick! A Warwick!” and they posted long statements of their grievances. In one of the engagements which resulted from these disturbances, the queen’s father, Lord Rivers, was captured and beheaded. The same fate befell two descendants of the union of dowager Queen Katherine and Owen Tudor.

King Edward had good reason to believe that the hand of Warwick could be detected in these continuous breaches of the peace, but he hesitated to bring things to an open rupture. He was too conscious of the great power still wielded by his former chief minister to risk a break.

Warwick’s ambitions had begun to soar. He was no longer content to stand behind a king, even though the latter might be of his own making. A revealing statement was made to an emissary of the King of France, who crossed into England to see him. This agent, whose name was Manipenny, was quite as devious as his master, but Warwick seems to have spoken quite openly to him. “It is a matter,” he declared, “of being either master or varlet!” And this man of deep purpose had no intention of being a varlet. He wanted to hold the supreme power in his own hands, but he realized that he could never hope (except under extraordinary circumstances) to be crowned himself.

But there was another way. The oldest brother of the king still alive was Prince George, who had been made Duke of Clarence. That title, it may be explained, was derived from the old family name of Clare, who had had vast landholdings in Ireland and in Gloucestershire. The name George came, of course, from St. George, the patron saint of England. He seems to have been the first member of a royal line to bear the name in England. A very weak man was this George to bear so stout a name—no dragon-killer in any sense of the word. Instead he was vain, envious, and lacking in all fine qualities such as loyalty and courage. As usual with characters of this kind (the pages of history are red with their misdeeds), he believed himself capable of reigning just as well as his brother Edward, if not a little better. It irked him to stand behind the royal shoulder and to bend his knee in obedience.

Warwick had kept this weakling in his eye for a long time and considered him a perfect tool for the purpose he had in mind. If Edward were deposed, he could put George in his place, being certain that the
foolish and fickle prince would be putty in his hands. It would be clear to everyone that he, Warwick, was ruler in all but name. This would suffice his proud spirit. And if George became troublesome? That would open up new vistas.

To bring the unstable Clarence over to his side, Warwick convinced him he should marry his daughter Isabel. She seems to have been too young and innocent to wed the dissolute prince and, in addition, King Edward had other plans for his brother. The purpose of Warwick became very clear when the news reached Westminster that Clarence had crossed to Calais, where Warwick was now located, and had married Isabel.

Warwick had a double purpose in mind. To throw Edward off the throne would require aid from the Lancastrian part of the population. He must, therefore, act in concert with them. Clarence was in his net but it might become necessary to cast him overboard. Henry, the deposed king, had not long to live and it might not be too inconvenient to let him sit on the throne for a few years. Warwick had complete belief in his own ability to ride the future with a firm rein, come what may. It might be possible to put a son-in-law on the throne rather than let it pass to Henry’s son.

So at this stage he sought the assistance of Louis XI of France, and that most artful of monarchs was delighted to do anything in his power to renew the conflict in England. His policy had been to keep the English fighting among themselves, under their absurd rose symbols, because only in that way could they be prevented from swarming over into France to fight for the French throne. His willingness to work with Warwick had been strengthened by an announcement made in the House of Commons by Edward of his determination to regain by arms all the dominions in France formerly held by England.

The first step toward reopening the civil war was to gain the active support of Queen Margaret. That, it soon became clear, was not going to be easy.

Margaret, queen of sorrows and enmities, had been in France now for nine years, nursing her grievances and striving to secure help wherever she could. She was temperamentally incapable of forgiving an enemy; and highest of all on the list of those for whom she bore an unending grudge was the name of Warwick. It was through his energy and daring that the house of York had gained the throne. He haunted her dreams, this resourceful man against whom she had striven in vain. And, above everything else, she could not forgive him for standing up openly at St. Paul’s Cross and charging her with adultery at the time of the birth of her son. Make friends with Warwick? Margaret’s first reaction was an emphatic and almost hysterical negative.

But Louis had surmounted greater obstacles than the opposition of an angry woman. He made it clear to the ex-queen that this was her last chance. She could never hope to regain the ascendant with foreign levies, particularly as he had no intention of providing the funds or the men for another ill-planned foray. There was only one way left. Let Warwick, who had made Edward king, unmake him.

It was a bitter pill for the queen to swallow. “Her heart,” she told the French king, “would bleed till the day of judgment with the wounds that he,” meaning Warwick, “had inflicted.” She had answers for every point that the wily monarch raised. “It is true there is dissension in England,” she declared. “But they do not wear the red rose. They march under the bear and ragged staff of Warwick.” When he proposed among the terms to be arranged that her son wed Anne Neville, a younger daughter of Warwick, she burst into a fury of dissent. “What!” she cried. “Will he indeed give his daughter to my son, whom he has so often branded as the offspring of adultery?”

Louis was a master of diplomacy and he gradually wore her down. Perhaps she had realized from the first that this was in truth the last chance and had debated the points only to give a needed vent to her pent-up emotions. In the end she gave in to this extent: she agreed to see Warwick.

There was a dip in the divisions of France between the borders of Normandy and Brittany, running south through country which in summer was rich with the yellow bloom of the
planta genesta
and ending close to the western reaches of the Loire River. Here lay the capital of the province of Maine, the romantic city of Angers, famous for its impregnable castle of eight round, grim towers. Angers had played a continuous part earlier in the English-French wars, but now it was far removed from the scene of strife. Far enough at any rate from the sharp eyes of English espionage, Angers seemed a safe place for Queen Margaret and Warwick to have their meeting. Here they could thresh out their differences and Edward in London would be none the wiser.

Margaret came to Angers in a far from receptive mood. She made one point clear to the agile Louis, who was on hand to act as entrepreneur: Warwick must come to her and beg for her pardon.

It was some time before the Kingmaker agreed to this, but finally he gave in and accompanied the French ruler into the presence of the militant queen. Margaret sat on a chair high enough to suggest a throne, her face clouded, her figure tense. She neither moved nor spoke in response to the suave speeches of Louis and the first efforts of Warwick to bridge the hatreds of the past.

Finally Warwick realized he would not be met halfway. He went down on his knees before her and, if there was nothing humble in the lines of his back, there was a hint of it in what he said. He conceded that he had wronged her in the past and for this he begged her forgiveness. He promised that what he could accomplish for her in the future would erase from her mind all animosities.

Margaret listened in an unbroken silence. Warwick, taken aback, had to bridge her silence with more assurances of what he planned to do. For fifteen minutes the resentful queen kept him on his knees before giving in to the extent of permitting him to rise. This was most humiliating for the proud baron who believed himself capable of overturning the English government and dominating any monarchial arrangements which might result. But he was a thorough diplomat and so was prepared to accept such rebuffs as the present might offer in order to gain his way in the end.

In time, with the aid of that master of guile, Louis XI, an agreement was reached. Warwick promised to land in force in England and proceed against the Yorkist king with an army which, he asserted, would not be less than 50,000 men. King Henry was to be restored to the throne, and Warwick swore on a splinter of the True Cross, called the Cross of St. Laud d’Angers, to be a true and faithful subject. The Cross of St. Laud was believed to possess the power to cause the death within a year of anyone who perjured himself thereon.