We Speak No Treason Vol 2 (19 page)

He knew, despite the varied motives of the Parliament, that there was none other.

He rode to Westminster. He seated himself in the marble chair on King’s Bench. The royal oath—faintly heard upon his quiet lips.

His lecture to the Justices of Common Pleas and the Serjeants of the Law—unprecedented and, I think, not altogether welcome...

‘I charge you, one and all, to dispense justice without fear or favour, I say unto you’ (hands knotted and poised upon the Bench) ‘that all men, whatever their estate, shall be equal, in the sight of God and the Law. I charge you straitly to follow my will in this.’

Then he rose, and took the hand of Sir John Fogge, one of the staunchest Woodville adherents. He took his hand; he welcomed him in love and trust—he made him Justice of the Peace, God help me, for my own Kent! Fogge smirked a little under his obeisance.

The surprised looks.

Richard reinstating Bishop Rotherham to the Privy Council.

Richard, begging justice for all men.

Richard, summoning Lord Stanley, a little pallid, from out the Tower dungeon. His speech of forgiveness. Lady Margaret Beaufort was there, to rejoice with her lord.

I took to bathing my eyes with hawkweed, that plant shaped like the human eye and miraculously endowed. Even then, I knew I would need my keen sight.

The sun emerged as we made our way to Westminster, and the crowd, one great jostling gawk, showed its upturned chin in wonder. That augurs well, they said, with ohhhh and ahhh, then writhed to crush one another in their frenzy to see the King walking barefooted to his Coronation, on a broad crimson ribbon two ells in width. He walked far ahead of me, preceded by clarions and heralds, the leopards and lilies of England blazoned on each stiff tabard, the fringed pennons asway in the sunlit air. Before him, the great Cross flamed its high splendour. Far ahead of me he went, but through the long train of monks and priests, abbots and bishops, I could glimpse the rich purple of his robe, his dark head, carried on a steady, measured walk. Then the light faded, as we were gone from the sun, and into the dark arching vastness of the Abbey. At the end of the train I came, in my red and white, the colours of Plantagenet. And tall Northumberland sealed off my view of him, so that I looked upon the pointless sword of mercy, and a great diapason of singing rang against the stone, a high ethereal swell like one might hear upon the time of dying...

And the dark was changed again to light, a softer light bestowed by a thousand candles, and the slowly dropping banners grew transparent, unearthly with an unearthly jewelled glory, and the colours of the nobles took on a mysteriousness, sad flames, the reds like blood, the azures darkening as a storm-rocked sea. And the splendour faded a little when I saw who carried the Mace of Lord High Constable: Stanley himself, restored, and meek of step beside the King he swore to love for ever. The soft rustling beat of our steps was translated—in my mind alone—into Viscount Lovell’s voice, as he walked ahead,. carrying one of the pointed swords of justice:

‘My lord, forget not he betrayed you once—why do him such honour?’ And Richard (the throng swayed apart momentarily and I had him again within my sight): ‘I shall show him justice and mercy, Francis, he will repay me in kind.’

The state robes hung heavy on Anne Neville. The long train dragged at her small shoulders, and I had a sudden longing to take all that rich strain over my own arms, but there was one already destined for that dignity. Stanley’s wife smiled as she went, behind the progress of frail Anne. She had grown in stature, Lady Margaret, what with the chopines boosting her soles and the rich hennin floating above her head, and her well-concealed pride. She held the cloth loosely between her hands, unlike Buckingham, who gripped Richard’s train until his knuckles blanched white. The Earl of Lincoln bore the orb, Suffolk the sceptre. And above Richard’s head, the golden canopy, carried by the Wardens of the Cinque Ports, gave back prisms of coloured light from one great window, filtering rainbowlike over the procession and resting lovingly upon the Crown of England. Bold John Howard bore the Crown; Howard, friend and servant of Richard for many years; Howard, newmade Duke of Norfolk. Up the nave I went, feeling the slight red wrinkling of the carpet beneath my feet, beside Richard Ratcliffe, behind Sir John Fogge, while the singing in the misericords rose and rose; the high cold voices, the organ like a bell!

Richard and Anne stepped forward, and merged with a sea of grey amices, gold mitres and croziers. Caught up in destiny, while the Latin and prick-song resounded from the old stones of the Abbey; they
were
England. I wanted to shout, to weep. They rose from their seats of estate and walked, small figures in the candled distance, up to the High Table of God. Four priests divested them of their upper clothing. The thick wavering glint shone upon their flesh. The dark head bowed. The fair head drooped. The choir was silent.

He was anointed with the sacred oil, on brow and breast and hands; and there came a little gushing sigh from the walls of the Abbey, where hundreds on hundreds of citizens and holy men, earls and barons and dukes, formed one great eye; and somewhere in. the cold upper darknesses of the church a power stirred that was not of this world, and the Chrism gleamed upon the flesh of Richard, and of Anne.

Yea, I was there, Master Brecher, when they crowned him King. I watched him anointed, King Richard the Third, and saw, through the haze and the pungent shrouding incense, a young man, distressed by the bloodshed in Tewkesbury Abbey. I saw him with bare head slowly circling the rusted ranks of the men of York in Moorfields, thanking them for their presence. I saw him laughing across the table in a Bruges inn. I saw also a little artificer, clutching his deed of title, while the stink of London rose about him. And the face of a young maid, mouthing a long-forgotten echo... ‘Holy Jesu! how he shines!’ All this I saw, and without seeing.

They were arrayed in cloth of gold. In the last moment of silence, Cardinal Bourchier set crowns upon their heads, and the organ burst into a swelling paean of song, while the monks of Westminster lifted their hearts in the
Te Deum Laudamus
, and King Richard took in his hands the crown of St Edward and the holy relics, offering them at the Confessor’s Shrine.

Outside, the jubilation had already begun. It was an awful sound; although I knew it to be the thunder of welcome, it had the puissance of a great fire, wantonly directed.

So he came out into this inferno of acclaim, crowned, with darkness and the trace of tears beneath his eyes with Anne, his Queen, white and rosy and smiling; and they stood a moment listening to the cries. In the courtyard of the almonry outside the West Door hung the Red Pale, Caxton’s emblem, and unwittingly my thoughts fleeted to his achievements. Books to laud the martyrdom of saints, the past honours of English fighting men—and the greatness of kings. And who would be written of more gloriously than King Richard the Third?

Little stays with me, of the banquet that followed. Except that Buckingham was Master of Ceremonies, that Stanley and his lady were prominent, and that I served the King with wine. Lord Audley carved his meat, Lovell and Robert Percy tendered him dishes of gold and silver. The servers lay prone at his feet; each time he, or the Queen, touched food, four henchmen raised the cloth of estate high above their heads. At opposite boards bishops and knights surveyed one another across Westminster Hall, and the whole peerage of England observed their King. There were contented looks, and when Sir Robert Dymmock, the King’s Challenger, rode in through the great door in pure white armour, forking a steed barded with the colours of Plantagenet, there was a growing murmur that swelled even as he brandished his sword and called on any who would fight him for the King’s honour. Twice he challenged the company, and before his last cry was out, the answering roar came from a thousand throats...

‘King Richard! King Richard!’

And Dymmock took from the golden cup a great draught, then, casting the wine upon the ground, rode swiftly from the Hall, while the spilled redness soaked the rushes, like the blood of a dying man.

He yearned for the North, at once.

After the long exhausting revel we made him ready for bed. It was late, and the fire was down; so I lit new candles, coaxed the logs into brightness and divested him of his Queen’s coronation gift, a habit of purple cloth of gold, starred with white roses and the Garter emblem. He stood at the window, I behind him, holding out his bedrobe and looking over his shoulder on to the Thames to where the lamps hung like fireflies in the rigging of visiting craft, and at St Edward’s diadem gleaming round the great dark curve of the river. Far below, the unseen black tide flowed, muttering a strange nocturne. I do not attempt conceit, that I could always read his mind, yet I knew then how he was full of self-doubt. Twice that evening he had bidden a henchman see that the Lords Bastard were comfortable in Garden Tower. Brackenbury had told Ratcliffe and me that the Lord Edward would speak to none, but that the Lord Richard had regained spirits and was playing soldiers with a page, avoiding the set, white face of his brother.

He stood so long before the open window that the cold air blistered his naked flesh. He said without turning:

‘They gave me a fair ovation this night.’

‘In truth, Sire, they did.’

‘How does my Queen?’

‘Well, if a little weary, lord,’ answered Lovell.

‘My son?’

‘Asleep, your Grace.’

He turned swiftly for me to gown him. He took up a candle. Its light made his shadow tall. We followed him along the wavering corridor, to the apartments of the little Prince. We entered so soft the tutor did not wake, and only one page stirred at the bed’s foot, groaning in a dream.

‘Gentlemen, your future King,’ said Richard quietly.

I have seen many looks of love. The love of a good priest for Holy church, or a wanton for a fair young knight, or a miser for his purse. Never before, or hereafter, have I witnessed such as the sublime look King Richard dropped upon his sleeping son. The child lay with his hands thrown upward above his head. A briar-scratch creased one palm. His mouth bloomed moist. A small blue vein in his temple fluttered softly, like the wings of a nesting bird.

‘Francis.’

‘Your Grace?’

‘I would not set my bastard John on England’s throne.’

‘No more you would, Sire,’ said Lovell, in swift comprehension.

‘By true blood and birthright,’ said the King. Lovell was moved. He sank upon his knee.

‘By true birth and blood, my lord, you are our sovereign. This day, and for ever.’

The King looked down at his bent head.

‘You give me great comfort,’ he said. Then, taking up the candle again: ‘Tomorrow, I will plan a great progress through my realm. Worcester, Gloucester, Coventry. And York, of course. We will ride north.’

None of us had an inkling of how unwise and how ill-chosen his moment to reap all that sweet glory, that swell of growing homage, like the organ and the high splendour of the voices at his coronation. A praise waxing more frantic the further north we went. At Oxford, the students, thronging the streets, banded and unruly as only students are, and joyful at the holiday. Their lecturers and tutors, gowned in sombre magnificence; the chief dignitaries of church and town, and the founder of Magdalen, welcomed him at the college gates.

The disputation held for his entertainment, between Dr Taylor and Master Grocin. Theology, philosophy. Their premises darted like hares around the hall. I was swamped in a great lake of logic. King Richard sat entranced, thanked them heartily after, with a new-killed buck, and money.

At broad-tongued Gloucester, the King’s own duchy, Harry Buckingham joined us. I saw a hardening change in him that amazed me, though I knew he had come close to quarrelling before we left London. Ratcliffe had told me.

‘The King said that my lord of Buck must surely be the hardest fellow to satisfy ever, being ill-content with the Great Chamberlainship and Constableship of England... and Harry took the rebuke badly. “Sire, you set great store by loyalty,” said he. “The de Bohun lands are surely less than my due.” .And the King looked at him right steadily, while Buckingham grew like a peevish, greedy wife, and touched the King’s heart right sore. For he spoke of Earl Warwick, and of how he, Harry, had set Dickon on King’s Bench as truly as the Neville once aided Edward Fourth. And (mad, or drunk, or over-certain of the King’s favour) he spoke of how those that make kings warrant especial privilege, and he used Warwick’s name again, in the shadow of a threat.

‘And the King sat very still, then he ordained the de Bohun lands, all fifty, to Buckingham, but there was a look on him that soured this gift, certes. As if a favourite hound had turned to maul him. That Harry Buckingham flies high since Richard said to Bishop Stillington: “My cousin is also Plantagenet”.’

The Mayor and aldermen of Gloucester had a welcome for the King, and a brass coffer of more money than I had ever seen at once, about a thousand pounds, and he refused it. He took the uncertain hands in his, and spoke of their Englishness, and of his affection. He enquired after their grievances, and a long line of petitioners came forth and were contented by him. He spoke an hour with one man, whose property had been unlawfully annexed by a neighbour. ‘A clerk it was, Sire, from Cambridge, and lettered in Latin; I was uncertain of the law,’ and a thoughtfulness came on Richard at this.

His generous new charter of liberties laid Gloucester prone with gratitude. As to Buckingham, that word was not in his lexicon, though we did not know it. He parted from us at Gloucester. I can see him now, tall on a jewelled mount.

‘Farewell, your Grace.’ There was unfeigned mockery in his obeisance.

‘So you leave us, Harry,’ said the King carefully.

‘With regret, Sire. Business is pressing.’

I stood by Richard, as the Duke rode close to us.

‘Your Grace’s answer remains the same?’ he asked softly.

There was a look like flint that Richard could employ at times.