Death Be Pardoner To Me: The Life of George, Duke of Clarence (8 page)

Coventry was two days’ ride away, endless as the days before had been endless, travelling through a grey endless landscape that offered no shelter from the harsh winds and cold that chilled our hearts as much as our bodies. A ride of intense loneliness for we did not speak at all. We huddled over our saddles, clutching our cloaks around us, trying for every tiny scrap of warmth we could gain from the thick wool. The horses plodded rather than walked, as if they too resented the long days of travel. The inn where we stayed overnight was not good but good enough. We hardly spoke for there was nothing to say to lighten our journey or our thoughts.

It was not very good living in my aunt’s house. She was gracious, she was kind, but she was extremely strict and we attended services what seemed like all day every day. A tall, thin, elegant but stern looking lady who ruled her home with supreme authority. She would allow no laughter; she would allow no conversation outside of ourselves. No visitors were permitted, no letters came. I knew not where my lord father was or my brothers; we heard nothing. No news was given to us. They might have been dead for all we knew. There was heartache, tremendous heartache at this. Coventry was not home and never would be. It was even more of a temporary resting place than Ludlow had seemed but without the diversions of Ludlow; no brothers, no riding, no hawking no hunting, just rigid devout life. For a time it pushed me even further away from having any kind of faith but I have to recall then I was very young and very disillusioned. For such a nice life - and it had been, despite the menacing clouds - had been abruptly, horribly, brutally brought to an end. I could not remove from my mind the pictures of the dead and dying in the castle and the courtyard at Ludlow, although I shut my ears to the screams of the women, nor could I stop bewailing the loss of my precious few possessions. There was no chance at Coventry to have anything new.

We studied, Dickon and I, and we improved our standards of scholarship but we stagnated in the sheer ennui of services and solitude, of silent meals and lack of companionship outside of each other.

I discovered hidden depths in my small brother I had not suspected. He was pious, which I did not know before then, and took real pleasure in the religious life we led. He went willingly to every service where I lagged behind, seeking excuses not to go, for the chapel was ever cold and I was ever in need of warmth. He did not mind the studying, leaping ahead of me in his knowledge of Latin and French. Whilst I laboured over translation, I realised he wrote as freely in those languages as he did in English. I was often told to look at my brother’s work as an example of what I should be doing but what I should be doing and what I did were two very different things then and continued to be for the rest of my life. I was never a scholar to that degree; if something interested me, I would pursue it relentlessly, if it did not, then the words found it hard to penetrate this stubborn mind of mine.

What can I say? In later life, when I fought with my brother of Gloucester over points of law I found my arguments equalled his or he equalled mine. I cannot say which was right of those two statements, so perhaps some of those early lessons did sink in after all, for we were well matched, according to those who heard us, trading argument for argument with neither of us able to outdo the other and it all being left to our brother the king to adjudicate for one or other of us. But that was in the future, the troubled turbulent future when money was important and estates were vital and our wealth depended on that which we held.

I think now of those days at Coventry when we were two small boys trying to be as innocuous as possible so as not to disturb my aunt’s household or bring censure down on our heads – my head if anyone’s for Dickon was better behaved than I at any given moment of a day or night – and where all that was open to us to pass the endless days was study.

Christmas passed in a haze of services and muted celebrations. The meals were good, but there was no entertainment, for my aunt employed no Fool or minstrels, considering them a waste of good money. Dickon bewailed the fact he had no lute. I longed for a dog to run at my heels as I played or rode with hounds. I longed to ride with hounds, too. Horses were kept for travelling, according to my aunt, not for frivolous things like hunts.

The New Year brought little prospect of joy or release from the prison in which I felt we were incarcerated but sunlight burst through with a visitor who came, cap in hand, to ask my lady mother if my brother and I might be lodged with the Archbishop of Canterbury, there to continue our studies. That in itself was a rare event, a visitor, but it was someone important enough for my venerable aunt to allow him to come in.

My lady mother asked, with astonishment, who had provoked such a request, she was told it was my brother of March who had written to the Archbishop from the stronghold at Calais, where he was safe and well and making many plans, arranging for our liberation. Ever will I be grateful to my brother for this act of kindness at a time when his life was in danger, himself attainted and his estates lost! In the midst of his own tribulations he thought to arrange for our future. When I tried to offer my thanks for this on his return to London in triumph, he dismissed it as nothing. Perhaps it was nothing to him, but it was a great deal to us and we never forgot it, either of us.

In later life I realised that the first consideration for my brother the king was family. Methinks I should have remembered that; in my quest for wealth, position and power I overlooked the small fact of family being important beyond anything else. Had I remembered that, many events might not have subsequently taken place and in truth I might not be incarcerated in the Tower at this time.

But to return to my past …

We had to leave our lady mother behind, in the care and protection – and custody - of her sister. We had to say formal goodbyes whilst behind the stiff faces I know I was crying and I believe Dickon was too, but we had a new and exciting life to look forward to, for some months at least. It helped, as we rode away, to think on that and not what we were leaving, our lady mother in a place of religion and no laughter, with no news and nothing but heartache. Not even her sons to fuss over and care for. With the ability of children to put out of their mind that which hurts, we looked forward to our next adventure.

And so it proved. The archbishop was a kindly man who provided us with clothing, books, musical instruments, a dog to romp with, a stable of horses to ride and tutors to enlarge upon that which we had learned already. I was, for a time, able to stop thinking about my lord father and my brothers, to stop feeling sick inside with worry at their fate, to concentrate instead on attempting to perfect my court manners and my studies, whilst Richard read and read and read until I thought he would damage his eyes with so much reading. He never seemed to be able to get enough knowledge, ever was he asking questions of the tutors and reaching for another book, or writing another essay or translating another piece of work. I wondered if it was his way of dealing with the worry of our transplanted lives, for we had been uprooted from Fotheringhay, then again from Ludlow, then again from Coventry and even now knew that this was no more than temporary lodgings.

Our lady mother wrote often, praising us for working so hard – which made me wonder who was passing on the information, was there nothing we could do that was secret? – and assuring us all was well, that we would be able to rejoin the family before many months had passed. I wondered how she knew this, too, for we had no news of our lord father or our brothers. We only knew our brother of March was alive and well at the time he wrote his request for our removal to the Archbishop’s home because he had written his request for us to be moved there, but following that time we heard nothing.

There were rumours; of course, England was ever alive with rumours. There was talk of uprisings, of revolt, of unhappiness among the nobles of the land. How much was true and how much was rumour was for any to speculate upon and try and find the kernel of truth, if truth there be in such stories. Who can tell when it is passed from one man’s mouth to another’s ears and from that man’s mouth to another’s ears and in the process to become changed beyond all recognition? This we knew to be a fact; rumours could not be truth and truth stood out from rumours. So we lived quietly and studied and waited for the truth to be known and for our brothers and our lord father to come home.

I have to say, if this is to be a honest recollection of my life, and at this advanced stage of my condition that life is ever growing shorter by the moment, that during that period I grew to be more than passing fond of my younger brother. He was quiet, steadfast, intensely loyal, devoted and devout. I found him to be intelligent and sharp-witted, thoughtful and considerate and I envied him his quiet pose and demeanour.

Right now, sitting here before this fire this cold February day, aware of the chill of the great stone walls which have absorbed the joys and sorrows of a thousand years – or so it seems to me – it is hard to recall the feelings I had for my brother in their real form. I recall them as a fact, I recall that I did carry those emotions for him at that time. We lived close together, we studied together, we played together and I grew in love and appreciation of him. I ask myself now why it all went so badly wrong, why I chose to walk away from the family, why I considered him in later life to be my bitter enemy, why and then again I ask why. I have no answers.

I can only what I have already thought whilst dwelling on these memories:

I do not know; I will not know.

Chapter 9

Attainted exiles, despised family, traitors to a man according to the current thinking, but word came of how the people cheered when Edward earl of March rode back into London! Rain, such rain as the world had not seen, had dampened everyone’s spirits, along with the crops, the animals and the wildlife. The people of England were in great need of something to lift them out of the depression caused by the incessant ruinous weather. What more could they ask than a golden, handsome giant of a man with a huge smile, tremendous courage and an equal amount of charm arriving like a king about to be crowned?

Could there be anything worse for someone bursting with energy and family loyalty than to hear the news of an adored brother marching on London, setting a siege of the Tower, raising a new enthusiasm in his followers as he then turned and marched north to do battle once more? George fretted and fumed at being confined in the archbishop’s house whilst the news of his brother, with the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, kept on coming, men describing the march on London whilst he was unable to hunt, ride, practice his archery or – what he really wanted – to leap on a horse and go and join his brother on the triumphant ride into the greatest city in England. Like it or not, there were still lessons to be learned, manners to be acquired and court etiquette to be forced into his unwilling mind. Ever impatient, the lessons with lute or the dance were purgatory at times, when his mind was on battle and glory, not on the nuances of lyrics or the turn of a foot and the sweep of an arm so as not to discomfit a partner.

He was safe from the inclement, unseasonable, unreasonable weather at least. The rain beat against the shutters and the window glass, darkening the day so that there was need of cressets and rush lights everywhere. George strode the halls of the house, boots striking hard against the flagstones, trying to kick his way out of the frustration and anger consuming him. He felt he was being closeted against his will with a brother who spent all his day with his nose in a book and merely raised his eyes to look askance at George as he vented his spleen on the world which would not allow him a place in the battles to come.

“George, you are too young.” The words were uttered with all the wisdom of an eight year old who had spent many hours reading Latin, French and other hefty tomes and who took to the practice with arms and the work in the tiltyard as if it was a task rather than a pleasure. In the face of such quiet certitude, George did actually feel too young, rather than what he really was: an eleven year old prince imbued with all the manners and skills required to take his place at court, in essence a young man consumed with restless energy and a need to combat the ennui that the rainy summer and confinement had wrought in him.

“Age doesn’t matter, Dickon, it’s what’s in my heart that matters! My heart says I want to be there with our brother of March, riding where he rides, fighting where he fights, sleeping rough if he does!”

“Ha! What then of your fine doublet and handmade boots, might I ask? Why, you know you are overly possessive of your clothes and your belongings.”

“To ride with our brother I would give it all up!” George whispered with such intensity and seriousness that Richard actually shut the book and looked at him.

“You mean it, don’t you?”

“I do. Don’t you feel the pull of the wide world? Don’t you want to be out there, where the people are shouting for you, where the men are saddling up and riding with you or taking up arms and walking the roads behind you to help you to take what is rightfully yours? Don’t you think I want to be there when our lord father comes back to England to take his rightful place in court again? Of course I do!”

Stamping his feet, throwing wide his arms, head back, George appeared to grow several inches in every direction. “Don’t think I am not grateful for the time we have spent here,” he said suddenly, his size reverting to normality again as a more serious expression took over. “The archbishop has been more than generous, I trust our family can recompense him for our board and our clothes. The tuition has been above that which I would have expected and the time here truly a sanctuary after all we have been through. Ludlow is – almost – a distant memory now.”