The Tudor Rose (37 page)

And although the fifteen-year-old Archduke—advised, no doubt, by his father the Emperor—wrote back in due course, regretting that he had no power to expel the Dowager Duchess or her guests from his territory, Elizabeth felt that sooner or later Henry would find means to force him into doing so.

“And where will the poor
garçon
of Tournay go then?” she wondered, immediately chiding herself for the thought because it did not matter at all.

But all too soon she and Henry were to know.

“The pretender has landed in England,” people shouted; and some, in their excitement, so far forgot themselves as to cry aloud with love in their voices, “Duke Richard has come home!”

All London was in an uproar. For an hour or two the Court seethed with excitement. And then fresh messengers clattered in over London Bridge, bringing more exact tidings, and the thing became a sorry jest, adding to Henry's prestige and somehow filling Elizabeth with secret, painful shame. The inglorious fact was that although Perkin's little borrowed fleet lay for several hours off Kent, with the money of his Continental backers behind him and the prayers of many a Yorkist wellwisher in England awaiting him, he himself had not set foot on English soil at all. He had sent a small advance party ashore to reconnoitre in some obscure fishing village, and the local Kentishmen, Tudor loyal, had lulled them with promises of food and adherence and then slaughtered them with whatever implements they could lay hands on, “trusting to God,” as they put it, “that King Henry would come before the ships' companies landed and wreaked vengeance.” But the foreign-looking ships had sent neither help nor vengeance, but sailed away, leaving their unfortunate comrades behind.

“Which proves that he is no Plantagenet!” declared Elizabeth disgustedly.

It had been such a pitiful attempt that the sudden shock of it was soon forgotten. De Puebla, the Spanish ambassador, even reported that his royal master—who had hitherto shown himself much concerned about the insecurity of Henry's claim—considered all such pretenders merely food for laughter. But Henry, more harassed than any of his subjects, had all the ports watched and his own Lord Chamberlain brought to trial. Nothing worse came to light concerning him than that he had sworn that if the would-be invader could be proved to be Edward's son he would not lift his sword against him, but this was sufficient to condemn him. Elizabeth, who had heard the words spoken in their innocuous context, supposed that Sir Robert Clifford must have reported them to the King out of spite or in order to wash out his own near-defection in the past, and she would have gone straightway to her husband about it; but Archbishop Morton assured her that it was known to both of them that Sir William had promised much of his wealth to this flickering Yorkist cause. And it occurred to her, as it might also have occurred to Henry, that the invader might indeed be Edward's son, and yet no Duke of York. The people were appalled that a man like the great Lord Stanley's brother should lose his life over so small an affair, all the more so in view of the King's habitual clemency; and yet they were impressed by the fact that neither family connections nor high places could protect a man from the results of suspected treachery.

And Elizabeth, covertly watching her husband, thought that he had become more secretive than ever and noticed how he had begun to age. She knew that, whatever private evidence he might have had of Sir William's guilt, he must have found it hard to sign the death warrant of a man whose intervention had saved the day for him at Bosworth. All his natural caution must have warned him of the risk of losing his own stepfather's loyalty; and more than anything else he must have hated to bring such bitter grief into the family circle of his mother.

Why had he done this thing, Elizabeth wondered, just when he could so ill afford unpopularity? Henry was not naturally cruel. Rather, he turned from violence. But fear, sometimes, could drive a naturally clement man to cruelty. Could it be possible that when it came to this question of the succession Henry was mortally afraid? That all his pride and self-sufficiency and vaunting dragon banners were but a cloak for the pitiful sense of inferiority felt by a man who had neither the clear right nor the personal attractiveness for the heritage he had usurped? A cloak which excluded the sympathy she would so willingly have given.

For the first time the wild idea occurred to Elizabeth that perhaps Henry might half believe in the thing which he had taken such pains to disprove. That he, too, was not quite sure that Perkin
was
an imposter.

But, whether he did or not, life went on much as usual. Elizabeth bore Henry another daughter, who, from the first moment of her gurgling baby laughter, brought her nothing but joy. They called her Mary, and young Harry, her brother, adored her. It was good for him, their mother thought, to curb his boisterous strength sometimes and play with her gently. Elizabeth was happily occupied with all her children. Arthur was mostly away at Ludlow with his tutor, and she was proud of his scholarly prowess, although sometimes of late she had worried over his health. She tried to prepare her elder daughter for the high matrimonial place which would undoubtedly be hers and at the same time to cure her haughtiness; and not to spoil young Harry, however much she was tempted to do so because of the turbulent affection he showed her.

Happy with her family at Richmond or Greenwich, Elizabeth saw little of Henry, who seemed to be perpetually going by barge to Westminster. He worked harder than most of his subjects, improving the courts of justice, controlling the dangerous power of the great barons by limiting their liveried retinues, and increasing the country's prosperity by creating markets abroad and by encouraging the discoveries of new countries by such splendid sailors as Cabot. He was full, too, of the prestige which would accrue to England from the proposed Spanish alliance, and spent hours closeted with de Puebla, the Ambassador, haggling about a handsome dowry and trying to arrange for a proxy marriage.

But the pretensions to a better Plantagenet claim which dogged Henry's reign were not to leave them in peace for long. There came a memorable evening when all their domestic activities were overshadowed by portentous news from Berwick. As they sat listening to the musicians after supper a messenger from that northern border town sought an immediate audience with the King, and hurried into the hall, dusty and exhausted, to report that Perkin Warbeck, forced at last from Flanders by the people's reactions to Henry's trade reprisals, had landed in Scotland. After two testimonies to the Tower murder and the printed pamphlets about his, Perkin's, parentage the sheer impertinence of it left the English Court breathless. True, Edinburgh was not much nearer in miles than Ireland or Flanders; but this time no protecting sea lay between.

“What are the Scots thinking of to allow it when your Grace has been to such pains to make a lasting treaty with them?” expostulated Sir Reginald Bray, who had done so much to strengthen the Tudor King financially.

But in the dispatches from the much fought-over town of Berwick it was clearly stated that Perkin Warbeck had landed by the King of Scots' invitation.

“You mean that James actually treats him as if he were royalty?” exclaimed Elizabeth.

“It would seem so,” said Henry, still holding the letter between his hands. “As absurdly as Margaret of Burgundy did when I succeeded in prising him out of France.”

“But James would not do so merely to annoy you?”

“One would scarcely suppose so after there has been talk of his marrying my elder daughter.”

Elizabeth rose from her chair beside the fire and began to pace back and forth between the standing courtiers. “Oh no, not James!” she repeated, in sore perplexity. “In spite of all the border foraging that goes on, everyone holds James the Fourth of Scotland to be one of the most cultured men in Christendom. Bernard Andreas says he can turn a Latin phrase as fluently as he can talk French with Charles' envoys or discuss crofts and cattle with his Highlanders in their own Gaelic. His word is his bond. I have always thought he would be a son-in-law to be proud of.” She stopped in front of her husband and spoke with urgent informality. “Henry, do you not see that if James acknowledges him it is because he really
believes
him to be my brother? This—torturing uncertainty—is coming very near home!”

All looked upon her with compassion. Even Henry could comprehend something of her distress and tried his best to reassure her. “There is no uncertainty at all after the conclusive evidence about your brothers' deaths and the facts we have now assembled about this impostor,” he said. “And in any case James can never have seen the real Duke of York, so why should his opinion affect you?” Yet when the King turned to enquire of the messenger what forces Warbeck had brought with him the question sounded merely perfunctory. This wholesale deluding of sane people had gone on so long that it was becoming uncanny. It was not the material force of the young man that mattered but his personal magnetism. One could fight successfully against a stated number of ships or horsemen or archers, but where was the weapon with which to fight against charm? For, as the messenger admitted, the levelheaded King of Scotland, who had but recently been discussing the advantages of a marriage with the Tudor King's daughter, had received Margaret of Burgundy's protege doubtfully, questioning him again and again with true Scottish caution; and yet he—like all the rest—had been persuaded.

“Why should my wife imagine James Stuart to be any better than the rest? He only
pretends
to believe in him,” argued Henry, alone afterwards with Morton in the privacy of his own work-closet. “This brash young merchant is like a hostage held in all sovereigns' hands save mine, and they bandy him about between them. He is something they can throw into the scales against me, in order to undermine my security when they think I am becoming too powerful. And as a trouble-maker he is nearly as valuable to them spurious as real.”

“It is only Clarence's son Warwick who is real,” Morton reminded him. “And he is safely in the Tower.”

And so they made themselves believe until James of Scotland gave his beautiful cousin, Katherine Gordon, to the so-called Duke of York in marriage.

Most people about the Court were reduced to horrified silence by this amazing move. Only the ageing Jasper Tudor had the hardihood to sum their thoughts in words. “One might give a man a bodyguard of gentlemen as a political gambit, as Charles of France did,” he said, “but not a bride of one's own blood. That is inconceivable. Unless one genuinely believed in him.”

The King himself came as near to rage as Elizabeth had ever seen him, for Katherine Gordon was his cousin too. And it did not improve his temper that the suave de Puebla made some excuse to return to Spain, and that Ferdinand and Isabella let the matter of their daughter's marriage drop.

“
That
is what this poisonous imposter has cost me!” raged Henry, running his bony hands over his thinning hair. “For six years or more his antics have tormented me, and where will the end of it be?”

“And do you not see, Sir, that
any
pretender makes a cat's-paw for your enemies?” Elizabeth overheard Morton say. They are willing to take risks because if this little Flemish popinjay loses his life in some crazy venture Warwick will still be safe.”

“And a thorn in my side!” said Henry thoughtfully, unaware that his wife stood within earshot. “Although he is weak-minded and his father was an attainted traitor, you think it is really Warwick whom Ferdinand and Isabella mind about most?”

The future Cardinal was easily the cleverest man in England and the only one in whom Henry ever confided. “I think,” Elizabeth heard him say, “that there will be no Spanish marriage so long as Warwick lives.”

Henry heaved the sigh of a very weary man. “Then it behoves me to catch the cat's-paw,” he said, “and perhaps Heaven may show me how to use him myself.”

T
HE WORDS THAT SHE had overheard meant little to Elizabeth at the time, and soon there were more urgent things to think about. In the autumn James and Perkin invaded England as everybody had expected they would; and although Henry's forces were so well prepared that the invasion extended not much farther than a border raid, its savagery was unprecedented. Perkin's foreign supporters had been added to James's troops, and the desolation of sacked villages which they left behind them was appalling. It was Perkin himself who appealed on behalf of the Northumbrians and persuaded James to turn back—partly, perhaps, through pity for people whom he claimed as his subjects, and partly because he had wit enough to realize that burning people's homes was a poor way to win their support. Such tactics might satisfy James's ambition by wresting from England the coveted town of Berwick, but they certainly would not help to smooth his own pathway to a crown.