Queen by Right (51 page)

“’Twas only words, my lady, words!” Richard erupted. “The herald came empty-handed. Not a groat, not a penny, not a noble did the king send me. Just words.” He ranted on in a vehement denunciation of King Henry and his council, and Cecily tried to shush him with little success. “I feel betrayed, Cis,” he muttered, finally slowing down. “I cannot stay here without funds to put down the MacGeoghegan rebellion once and for all and hold O’Neill loyal. But more than this, I cannot fight for my position at court while I languish in Ireland and allow Henry to lavish favor on others with a lesser claim to privilege than mine. If I could but have a little of the king’s ear, he would know I am not his enemy. ’Tis Somerset who poisons the water for me while I am not there to defend myself. ’Tis plain as a pikestaff that with his gifts Henry means to strengthen his Lancaster ties to Somerset and Exeter and so weaken mine. But I am heir presumptive after all, and no one must forget that.”

His voice had risen, and Cecily whispered, “Have a care, Richard.” Her heart was beating fast. She had not seen Richard so bellicose before.

“’Tis said the crown is bankrupt. Bankrupt!” Richard continued more quietly. “Henry has given away all his lands, grants, and lordships to those covetous men who pretend to serve him. Dear God, what will become of England?”

Cecily put her arms around him then and laid her head on his shoulder. “Soft, Dickon, let us get some rest. We can speak more on it in the morning.” In truth, she needed more time to contemplate his words. She was enjoying their life in Ireland, where Richard was king in all but name and she his consort, and she was not ready to see Richard’s dreams dashed once again. She knew Edmund Beaufort was a dangerous man, and if he had the ear of both king and queen, then Richard’s ambition might be thwarted anew—and at what cost to her growing family. She sighed, coaxed him down under the covers, and turned on her side so that he could cradle her, as he always did before they fell asleep.

“I must go home, Cis. Can you understand and support me in this?”

“Wherever you go I go, my lord. ’Tis not only my duty but my desire,” she assured him, although her heart was full of misgiving. Feeling his familiar warmth against her, she made brave to whisper, “I beg of you, though, for the sake of our children, to have a care. You do not want to make an enemy of the king.”

A
ND SO ONCE
again the York family packed up its belongings and prepared to move on. Cecily and Richard bade farewell to their Irish hosts at a lavish banquet that Richard could ill afford, leaving as Richard’s deputy James Butler, earl of Ormond, to attempt to keep the peace. Richard had made his mark in his short term as lieutenant, and he was assured by the White Earl that he would always have allies in Ireland.

The voyage across the treacherous Irish Sea in late August was not as pleasant as the first one, and Cecily and Constance spent many an hour tending to the seasick children. When they tried to land at Beaumaris, they were met with armed men blocking the watergate entry into the castle.

“What does this mean, Richard?” Cecily asked anxiously when he returned to the quarterdeck and told her they would be sailing on to Denbigh, one of Richard’s own townships, instead.

“It seems the king was expecting me, my lady,” he snarled, pacing the cramped space, “and it seems he does not want me back. The commander here has instructions to imprison me and my men at Conway in the name of the king if I set foot on Anglesey. Arrested! Christ’s nails! ’Tis hard to believe. I suspect the summer incursion by that rebel Cade has made Henry nervous.”

Cecily nodded, chewing on her lip. She had listened with dismay when news had reached Dublin in late June of a revolt by commoners and gentry alike from the counties of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, led by a veteran Irish soldier named Jack Cade. A huge band of rebels had reached the outskirts of London.

“But Cade’s followers were not the same sort of rabble who followed Wat Tyler in the second King Richard’s time,” Richard explained. “These were knights, members of Parliament, sheriffs, and well-known gentlemen along with yeomen and tradesmen. The king and council had to take them seriously.”

The rebels’ manifesto was reasonable enough, Cecily thought, especially as the first and foremost of the points involved Richard. It stated that the king “has had false counsel, for his lands are lost, his merchandise is lost, his commons destroyed, the sea is lost, France is lost, and himself so poor he cannot pay for his meat,” and thus their first demand was for the king to rid himself of “the traitors that be about him.” It called for him “to take about his noble person his true blood of his royal realm, that is to say, the high and mighty prince the duke of York, exiled from our sovereign lord’s person by the noising of the false traitor, the duke of Suffolk, and his affinity.”

When Cecily heard those words, she clapped her hands in delight. “You see, my lord, someone in England does appreciate you,” she cried, but was immediately silenced by Richard’s glower.

“Soft, my lady, I beg of you. You know not who may be listening. Aye, the words might be flattering, but when I tell you that this Cade fellow put it about that his real name is Mortimer . . .” He nodded as Cecily’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened in shock. “Aye, it is falsely put about that he is a kinsman of mine, thus implicating me in this rebellion. Certes, I cannot prove otherwise, for here I sit, helpless and out of earshot!”

“Is Cade still a threat?” Cecily asked, and was relieved to know that eventually all the rebels had returned home, the manifesto had been ignored, and Jack Cade had died trying to defend himself. His body had been quartered, and his head placed atop London Bridge alongside other traitors.

Cade’s revolt, however, was only a small part of the widespread discontent up and down the country that year.

20
Ludlow, Autumn 1450

C
ecily was never more glad to see the Felton-stone walls and parapets of the York bastion of Ludlow rising from the Corve plain and glowing plum rose in the setting September sun.

“Home,” she murmured, her heart singing, as hundreds of townspeople ran out to greet their lord and lady. After the hectic life in Ireland, Cecily was looking forward to being in her own home once more. Bessie and Meg waved at the children who skipped alongside the cumbersome chariot Richard had commandeered for Cecily at Denbigh. Field hands, carrying their scythes and whetstone bags, were wending their way home after a day of harvesting the ripened corn, their faces and necks brown as beechnuts. The men wiped their glistening brows with sweaty kerchiefs and the women untucked their coarse russet skirts from the belts and brushed off the chaff before hurrying to join the cavalcade.

“Look you!” a buxom young laundress cried to her friend, balancing a basket of wet linen on her hip as they climbed the riverbank to the road. She pointed to the two boys riding together on a small palfrey a few paces behind their father on his prancing courser. “’Tis the lords Edward and Edmund. Lord above, how they are grown.”

“And handsome,” agreed her friend, and Cecily glowed with pride. Ned was sitting tall in his saddle and basking in the attention he was getting from the spectators. He looks older than his eight years, she thought wistfully. Soon it will be time for him and Edmund to have their own household, and we must employ a tutor as soon as we have settled. She was dreading a time when they would not always be with her. She waved and smiled at the enthusiastic townsfolk, pleased with the warm homecoming, which was getting even more boisterous as the procession made its way through the Corve Gate up the
hill and into the market square, where the high market cross sat hard by the castle’s outer bailey.

Richard chose to dismount at the main gate. He walked back to Cecily. “Shall we go in on foot, my lady?” he coaxed her with a smile, stretching his arms out to his two daughters. Taking each by the hand, he waited for one of his captains to help Cecily from the chariot, and then the ducal family entered the outer bailey with its stables, cookhouses, buttery, and many sheds, where craftsmen joined the scores of servants cheering their return.

“’Tis so good to be home, my lord,” Cecily murmured to her husband over Meggie’s fair head. “I pray that we may remain here, content, forever.”

Richard gave her a wry grin. “I wish it could be so, my dear, and indeed for you and the children, it shall be for as long as you want. But you know we cannot feel safe until I am assured our sovereign lord acknowledges the letters and bills that I have lately sent to him. And I can only do that by going to court.”

Cecily’s throat constricted. Why can I not feel anything but fear? she asked herself. Have we not wished and dreamed for Richard to take his place all these years? I used to want to be a queen, she remembered, but that was before I became a woman, before I had my children. Joan’s words came back to her: “Your duty is to your husband, and you must stand by him always.” It is easier said than done, Mother, she thought.

They were at the drawbridge to the high gatehouse tower, and Cecily glanced up at the fetterlock badge sculpted in relief over the portcullis. “You will not stir up trouble, will you?” She touched her daughter’s head and looked long at Richard. “These children need their father, and . . .” She paused, biting her lip. “I need my husband.”

Richard chuckled as he picked up Meg and carried her through the dark of the archway and to the inner bailey. He kept his tone playful. “What has happened to my ambitious wife, the one who has urged me to take my rightful place at the king’s side these many years?”

Cecily took Bessie’s clammy hand and hurried to keep up, cursing herself now for having encouraged him to assert his claim. Am I to blame for this? she worried. Sweet Jesu, was I wrong? What is important to me now is my family. Have I jeopardized their safety? “I became a mother,” she answered him.

Richard did not hear. He put Meggie down, strode across the courtyard to the round Norman chapel, and knelt before the chaplain to receive a blessing. Cecily gazed after him, tears very close and fear gripping her heart.

I
N THE FOLLOWING
week, Richard wrote two open letters to the king, in which he declared his loyalty and willingness to defend himself against false accusations. Receiving no response, he could only conclude that the king had hostile intentions, and so Richard took action to defend himself.

When Cecily stood atop the rampart of the gatehouse tower to watch him go, she could just see the fields to the south of the walled town filled with men-at-arms, foot soldiers, and yeomen from Richard’s Welsh and English lordships who had answered his call to form a bodyguard to escort him to London.

Astride his black courser, his white rose banner carried proudly by his faithful captain, Sir Davy Hall, Richard rode out of Ludlow, over the Ludford Bridge and on to London. Cecily did not know whether to feel pride or fear, but she could not scream out to him to turn back. As she descended the winding staircase, looping her long train over her arm and holding tight to the rail, she thought back on their last private exchange when they had broken their fast earlier.

“I will not make the same mistake Gloucester made at Bury,” Richard had said. “If I go with a goodly number, it is not likely I shall be set upon by the court party or any enemy. I go in peace, my lady, and I have no intention of threatening London. I simply want to be taken seriously. My dear, I have listened to you, to my own councillors, and to my conscience for long enough, and all have told me to fight for my rightful position. Now I finally hear you. I believe ’tis the time, and if the king will not uphold me, then perhaps God will.”

Cecily put down her piece of buttery cheese and wiped her mouth on a snowy napkin. She remained calm, even though she felt the bile rise in her throat. She knew she ought not to show him the fear that gripped her heart, but there was a tremor in her voice. “How do you know you have any support, my lord. Are my brother and his son with you?”

Richard toyed with a piece of cold beef speared on his knife and nodded. “And your sister Katherine’s son, Norfolk,” he said. “They support my desire for reform, ’tis certain. We must make the king understand that Somerset and his cronies must go.”

“But promise me you will not break your sacred oath. You will swear fealty anew to Henry, will you not?” Cecily pleaded, swiftly going down on her knees in front of him and pressing his free hand to her cheek.

Richard put down his knife and drew her onto his lap. “Certes, I will, you silly goose,” he assured her. “He may not be a perfect king, but he is the king,
and I only wish to help him be a better one.” He shook his head. “A kingdom can never afford to be ruled by a bad king, Cis. If only Henry were like his father, good King Harry, then England would not be in this turmoil. But, aye, sweetheart, I will swear fealty, for Henry is still God’s anointed. In this, I promise you, I am not my father’s son. The people are simply looking for someone of rank to lead reform, and I am he. Come now, Cis, we have been apart before. Have I not always returned?”