Crown in Candlelight (43 page)

Arthur and his three Queens! The glamour of the analogy lit a last small flame of impossible determination. For Arthur was immortal, and there was work to be done. Vaguely he heard the doctors, servants, confessors pleading with him, then found himself swaying upright on the river bank, where his horse stood before him, white as winter mist and as unreal, a descendant of the great stallion he had ridden at Agincourt. It wore a gold-embossed saddle with a high cantle for him to lean against. He was lifted and sat astride, two knights riding close on either side, supporting him. Ten paces forward, and the pain returned, furiously affronted, so that he ground his teeth and moaned. Twenty paces, and the saddle was wet with his blood. So he was taken down, insensible, and placed in a litter, and so brought back to Vincennes, to the curtained chamber, and the whispering host, and the lighted candles all about him. The days and nights coalesced into a little eternity of prayer and waiting, while the forest outside passed on the message from tree to tree, of greatness humbled, and the leaves rattled in terror and the bark groaned under the threat of storm-winds and the knowledge that kings must die and that they were less than kings and should also fear the axe.

From time to time the shadows that crowded nearer about the bed took him away to the utmost ends of a great universe, and reluctantly returned him at longer and longer intervals, when he dimly heard small sounds; the prayers and psalms for his recovery, and hour on hour, a woman’s little fretful coughing. He rocked and drifted on the shadows, longing to go wherever they willed him, yet clinging despite their power, striving to reach the other side of the ranks and rows of gleaming French chivalry massed so tightly that their armour rubbed together; to break through the wall of starry banners and be free to ride the empty plain and reach the city. He knew it lay beyond. It called him, with its sloping little red roofs and holy bells and the shrine that had long been fashioned in his heart.

‘Mars is square to Saturn in Virgo, his Grace’s birthsign,’ said Swanwyth. ‘Greatly unfavourable for all enteric disorders.’

Suddenly the shadows were gone about their other business. Voices and sounds were clear, tiresomely insistent. That time he had been so near he could almost see the gates of the city, smell the incense from the shrine. But here was Bedford, bending close, unshaven, Warwick and Exeter, peering sadly beneath the bed-canopy which was gilded overall with UNE SANS PLUS. Bedford was telling him that the skirmish was over, that the campaign had gone just as he had forecast, and, incredibly, that his illness had lasted three weeks.

‘Rest, Harry,’ he said. ‘You’ll soon be well.’

Everything was so lucid. He began to talk, while Bedford beckoned the clerks to set down all that the King said. Important and unimportant things, and matters of tender pain.

‘I ask pardon of all I have wronged. I give thanks to all who have fought for me so bravely, who have done my will without question, who have given all or part of their lives to my service. Would that I could have repaid them better.’

‘There will be time,’ said Bedford, but Henry shook his head. The wonderful clarity must not be interrupted.

‘I wish you, my lord John of Bedford, to command Normandy until my son is of age to rule. You are to be regent of France unless Philip objects and wants the title for himself. England must never quarrel with Burgundy; our strength lies there. And Charles of Orléans must be kept prisoner until the war with Armagnac is over and all France is subject to the Treaty.’

‘And in England?’

‘My brother of Gloucester shall be Lord Protector over the prince … you, my lord of Warwick, and my lord of Hungerford, shall support him in this. But John …’ His voice grew stronger. ‘You are to be the final arbiter in England over the safety, destiny and upbringing of my son. It is my decree that Humphrey of Gloucester’s power be limited so far as seems just and reasonable.’

And then he said, quite simply and softly:

‘I commit to your care the Queen’s Grace. Comfort her. Comfort my dear companion, my Katherine.’ Lastly, sounding much weaker: ‘Now send for my executors—I must show you my will.’

‘Ah, your Grace!’ said Exeter sadly. Henry looked at the doctors, and Swanwyth replied in a whisper: ‘Sire, except for the favour of God, we judge you cannot survive two hours more,’ and Bedford murmured: ‘We have sent for the Queen. She is sleeping, but …’

‘She has watched and prayed for hours, days,’ said Warwick, tears in his eyes. Henry smiled faintly. Let her sleep a little longer. Sleep on, sweet Katherine. The shadows return, I see them growing in the corners, coming to touch the gilded UNE SANS PLUS … friendly, soft. I will ride with them for a while. It was midnight and the monks in the nearby abbey began to sing matins. Wreathed by the sepia shadows came Bishop Courtenay’s face, still rapt as on the moment of his passing in the pavilion at Harfleur, and full of love, speaking without sound of the Four Last Things, and of other, unexpected matters—the nothingness to come; the black velvet aeons of waiting and then somewhere at the eternal outer limits of the universe—the reckoning. And with that word came a swirl of painfilled images—the mountained bodies on Artois plain, the crushed flowers of France, the drooping heads of the hanged hostages. Sounds, too; over the plainsong of the monks, a woman weeping, her voice that of the eternal widow robbed by war. Courtenay’s face was still close, his lips still moving, now speaking of guilt, the guilt of kings and warriors. This made him cry aloud, striving to rise and frightening away the shadows so that they rushed into the corners of the room.

‘You lie!’ he cried. ‘My portion
is
with the Lord Jesus!’

Now the confessor came, and the breviary and the glinting cross and holy vessels were the only foci of stern comfort before his eyes, and he spoke with humility of all the years of doubt, all the actions judged to be well-judged and right; nothing hasty or in anger but none the less actions dealing death to others, and midway he broke off and desired all the chaplains to recite the Seven Penitential Psalms, which contained the verse: ‘
Benigne fac ex benevolentia tua Sioni, aedificia muros Hierusalem
…’ and at this reminder of the greatest crime, his sin by default, he broke in again saying:

‘Good Lord, Thou knowest that mine intent has been and yet is if I might live, to re-edify the walls of Jerusalem …’ thinking even now: could I only be spared one more year!

His hand was clasped about the crucifix. Outside, the watchman called the hour; it was the last day of August, 1422. Beyond the bed stood the woman. Dark and pale, aged about twenty-one … his mother, Mary de Bohun. Death had stolen none of her douce beauty and sweetness. She was coughing, a little dry cough, trying to stifle it with a slim shaking hand. His mother had no cough, childbirth had killed her. There was only one who coughed like that, when sad or afraid.

‘Oh, my dear companion,’ he whispered. She stepped forward a pace, then was still, so that the priests could continue and administer the Blessed Sacrament and the Extreme Unction. Afterwards he again interrupted the prayers and chanting with a long lucid whispered speech which seemed so important, although it was compounded of old emotions known by all close to him.

‘It was not ambitious lust for dominion nor for empty glory … nor for any other cause that drew me to the wars .. but only that by suing for my right I might at once gain peace … and my own rights …’

Courtenay’s ghostly countenance again crept forward to mingle with the weary living faces. It smiled and nodded, and said distinctly:
I am your advocate
…

‘… I was fully instructed by men of the holiest life … that I ought and could … with this intention begin the wars .. prosecute them, and justly finish them …’

But it is unfinished! A spasm not of pain but of disembodiment took hold of him as the last of his life began to ebb away. He held steadily to the Cross.

‘… without danger to my soul,’ he whispered.

Servants were opening the windows ready for his soul’s departing. Everything was dim yet shimmering. The kneeling figures about the bed were a chiaroscuro, unformed save for their essence, but that essence was strong, full of tender consolation. The chaplain’s
Ego te absolvo
settled within him like balm. The pain was gone, it had never existed. The shadows were sweeping forward again, taller, majestic, like a trailing black velvet robe held engulfingly high. His grip on the crucifix slackened, for all he tried faithfully to hold it. He looked up to where the
raison
of UNE SANS PLUS swam together into a gilded bar, to where the pale face with the dark jewel-like eyes leaned down.

Queen Katherine laid her hand over his and over the crucifix. And with her touch a momentous thing occurred. He no longer saw faces or shadows, or the dimming manifestations of love and sorrow. He saw the city, builded anew.

It was not as he had dreamed. There were no little rose-red tiles, nor sloping dwellings, and no narrow arched streets. There was only a vast citadel, white as a perfect rose, whiter and more scintillating than the softest bleached sand, rising in immensity like a gleaming tree in flower. He moved forward to embrace it and its brightness blinded him, so that he closed his eyes.

O thoughtful herte, plonged in dystresse,

With slomber of slouthe this longe winter’s night—

Out of the slepe of mortal hevinesse

Awake anon! and loke upon the light

Of thilke star …

John Lydgate, 1370–1450

Rain, blown into fine patterns by an east wind, whirled about Windsor. It drenched the oaks in the meadow and darkened the hides of the grazing fallow deer. August? More like November! The wet-faced guard, ranged on the high walkways between the towers, remarked to one another. Below, soaked to his silk tunic, Humphrey of Gloucester rode in from Westminster at a gallop with a handful of servants and a vile temper. His mount’s sides bled from his rage. Weighted by his sodden cloak, he dismounted and threw his reins to a groom, who thought: my lord Duke, you’re a swine! Several nights of poulticing needed here, and good mounts not easy to find these days. Money was tight, if one’s betters were to be believed. He led the shivering horse away and Humphrey went rapidly across the green and entered the castle. He had apartments at Windsor, as in nearly every manor, and there more servants waited with dry clothes and a bath. Stripped, hairless and broad, slightly paunchy from too much wine, he submitted to these valets, cursing them continually for water too hot, soap too abrasive, herbals too pungent. At last he flung himself from their frightened hands and towelled himself as if to rub the skin from his body. And I wish, he thought, grinding his teeth, that this flesh were Beaufort’s and I flayed him thus with knives.

He had stormed from the Council meeting, although knowing this to be unwise. There would be wry laughter, ponderous Latin quips from Chichele, capped smirkingly by Henry Beaufort, that bastard Bishop who, since Harry’s death, seemed even more boastful of his flawed kinship with the royal House. Beaufort! the product of Gaunt’s lust, even now preparing himself to be enthroned as a great prince of the Church, a Cardinal. Beaufort! who, from that first Parliament two months after Harry’s death had with the utmost efficiency set out to block Humhrey’s power. He must have schemed for this, for years, all the time I was away nearly getting myself killed in France. How had it been so easy for him to obtain the support of lords and commons, gain triumph at that Parliament two years ago? The sole glories of which I dreamed as Protector of the Realm and the infant King, all are made null! He has hamstrung me! He flung the towel away and thrust his arms into a velvet robe. Me! Regent! Blood-uncle to the King!

‘Get out,’ he said, and thankfully the valets fled, gathering up the paraphernalia of the bath, which was a travelling tub in glazed leather festooned with gold tassels. Humphrey pulled a bench close to the roaring fire and continued to torment himself with memories of injustice. That opening of Parliament had fallen on a crisp November day. He had been dressed like a popinjay, befitting his new status, ready to sway kingdoms; riding close to the widowed Queen who sat veiled and ghostly in her carriage, the infant in her lap. Doubly bereaved (news had lately reached her of the death of her father in France), she had been mute and rigid, the child also waxen-stiff, both pairs of dark eyes withdrawn, shadowed. Two little dolls! to guard and guide and subjugate! Strength surged in him as he had ascended King’s Bench. He was glad that Bedford had remained in France, leaving the field clear. He had prepared his memorandum to submit to the lords stating that he had been granted
tutelam et defensionem principales
of the infant King as per the codicil in the royal will.

And then the opposition began, shattering him. They objected to his premise that if he were to administer the estates of a minor and as those estates constituted the realm itself, he, Humphrey, was no less than sovereign ruler. They objected strongly to his interpretation of the wording. True, he was designated custodian and regent. Yet (and for the first time in his life he feared apoplexy) he was to open, conduct and dissolve parliament
de assensu concilii
. All his decisions were to be subject to the consent of his peers. His status was fatally prejudiced. And Beaufort was behind it! One had only to look at him, hear the bland speeches obviously well-prepared for this contingency, see the nodding heads, the faces that said: we can make or break. We can keep Parliament in session for twelve months or dissolve it within a week if we wish. And you, my lord of Gloucester, Earl of Pembroke, are as much a figurehead as that pale infant yawning on the dais.

He stared into the fire, his eyes watering, recalling the sermon preached by Archbishop Chichele, so pointed in its allegory that some of the lords had laughed aloud. The story of Jethro and Moses, Jethro (Chichele) advising Moses (Humphrey) to delegate his authority in governing, to take counsel from the wise men about him, not to weary himself with overwork (over-ambition). Even after two years the sermon still smarted. Beaufort and Chichele had concocted it together. Hamstrung! by clever priests and lawyers, with their talk of Romanist interpretation and their objections to the word
tutela
, which meant that Humphrey, had he had his way, would have been answerable in all things only to the sovereign, a baby!