Queen of Trial and Sorrow

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Nothing in my life had led me to believe I was either blessed or cursed.  Quite the opposite: until
he
came into it, my life was as prosaic and predictable as thousands of others, with nothing out of the ordinary to define it. And this I accepted with equanimity.  I can divide my life into before I met him and after.  Those years before are all but lost to me, so obscured by the passage of time and their own ordinariness that few details remain.

Sometimes there are flashes of memory, so far removed from what I have become that it’s as if they belong to another person.  A girl of seven filled with misery because she was leaving her home, her little brothers and sisters, her pets and beloved parents, waving tearlessly as she was whisked away to go live among strangers and become betrothed to their son.  I wasn’t sure what that meant but it scared me because it seemed to carry with it an onerous responsibility.  

I remember the dry and dusty smell of the schoolroom where I learned to read and write in English and French, with some Latin, and a basic knowledge of law and mathematics that would be useful in running an estate.  And I remember the eagle eye and critical tone of Lady Ferrers as I learned how to supervise the servants, run the brewhouse, bakehouse and dairy and how to use a needle for both practical and decorative purposes. It was a conventional education.  The upbringing of a gently bred girl is mortally dull. 

At sixteen, I was ready to be a wife to John Grey.  No woman will ever forget the births of her children, but the struggle, the pain, have been eclipsed by so many other births.  Thomas was born at Astley in Warwickshire in ’55.  That was the year the fighting broke out, when the Duke of York’s forces first clashed with King Henry’s at St. Albans.  Richard was born two years later.  Those were good years for me.  Happiness is closely tied to expectation, and since marriage met all my expectations, it could be said I was happy – content anyway.  There was no great passion between John and I but there was a growing affection and I had no doubt we would have muddled along quite well except for the war.

For the country they were treacherous times.  First one side would gain mastery and then the other.  The common people didn’t know what the war was all about and most didn’t care.  But the rest of us understood that a struggle for control of a weak and feckless king had escalated into a fight for the crown itself.  In early ‘61 my husband went to join Queen Margaret’s army and came home in the back of a wagon, a gaping hole in his throat and all his blood drained away.

I had always believed my mother-in-law liked me well enough, or at least approved of me as a good wife to her son and mother of two heirs to the barony; but when John was killed she showed her true nature.  As if it wasn’t cruel enough to be suddenly and brutally widowed, she laid claim to and seized the two manors that had been settled on John and I in jointure at the time of our marriage, which ought to have gone to the surviving spouse.  It was a wicked thing to do.  My sons and I were destitute.  I had no choice but to return to my parents’ home at Grafton, where I waited for another husband to come along and save me from the ignominy of being a useless burden on the household.   

The day that divided the before and after was a warm and sunny day in May.  I was sitting under a tree in my mother’s garden sewing a new summer doublet for Thomas and, as usual in times of leisure, contemplating my miserable condition.  Sunlight was filtering through the leaves, lying in patches on the grass.  Bees were in the honeysuckle, butterflies floating among the fragrant lilies.  A fat tabby was sitting on the perimeter wall, his bright yellow eyes following the ball my two rambunctious sons were tossing back and forth, as if awaiting his chance to pounce.

The ball sailed into a border of flowers for the third time.  Richard went scampering after it but Thomas looked my way guiltily.

“That’s enough!” I said crossly.  “Leave it and come and sit beside me.”

“We won’t do it again,” Thomas whined, looking crestfallen. 

“Do as you’re told.  Come over here.”

My mother’s gardens were her pride and joy, a blaze of glory three quarters of the year.  Because she couldn’t grow flowers in winter (she had tried) she compensated with evergreen shrubs and a row of holly bushes that put forth bright red berries.  By the time the boys had thrown themselves down under the tree I was already thinking that the punishment outweighed the crime.  They were the dearest things I had.  It was not their fault they had no inheritance and no future.  I put my sewing aside and was about to rise and retrieve the ball myself when one of the windows of the house, peering like eyes through a blanket of ivy, flew open and my sister Anne leaned out.

“Bess!” she called down.  “You’re never going to believe it… The king is coming!  He’s coming to dine with us tomorrow!”

“Coming
here
?” I asked foolishly.

“Mama will be having a fit!” she said gaily.

“What’s the king?” four year-old Richard asked me solemnly.

That was what we were all wondering.  We knew he was the son and heir of the Duke of York but little else was known of him until his father and younger brother were killed at the battle of Sandal in the dying days of the previous year.  Then Edward Earl of March had burst onto the national scene like Athena springing fully armed from the head of Zeus to avenge their deaths at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross and then at the bloody field of Towton.  We knew also that he was still in his teens and had a deplorable reputation with women.  Now everyone was talking about him, many fearfully: soldier, seducer, teenager.  What kind of man – or boy – was he and what kind of king would he make?  Well, a temporary one – or so my family hoped. 

“He is a man we must all respect and obey,” I said to Richard.

“Does he ride a big horse?” Thomas wanted to know.

……….

They said Towton was the greatest battle ever fought on English soil in terms of the numbers involved and the casualties.  The bodies went into five huge burial pits, Lancaster and York side by side in the embrace of death.  It had been such a vicious battle that the equivalent of the entire population of a town like Lincoln went into those pits.  As the great Duke of Bedford’s widow, my mother was aunt-by-marriage to Henry VI and I had briefly served Queen Margaret as one of her ladies-in-waiting, so it was natural that we Wydevilles had always been for Lancaster.  It was a terrible time for us at Grafton, so soon after John’s death, because my father and brother Anthony were summoned to fight.  They came home whole, but Anthony was horror stricken at what he had seen and done.  They should have defeated the upstart Yorkist king, but they were defeated.  Having supported the losing side, we expected reprisals and were filled with trepidation.

But as the victorious young king came south, visiting the places that had given Lancaster support, we heard with surprise and relief how he summoned the important men of town and county for a heart-to-heart concerning their future conduct and punished by levying fines and demanding fealty rather than harvesting heads.

Like many other families, I suspect, we had a conference and decided, regretfully, that we would have to bend the knee to this boy-king, this sprig of the house of York, at least until the former king and queen had recovered their rights.  We felt no loyalty to him; we felt only antipathy.  He’d had the audacity to have himself crowned in London after driving Queen Margaret and her army away, and then he had chased her north and won a stunning victory.  Margaret and King Henry escaped to seek refuge in Scotland, or so we heard, but it was only a matter of time before they returned and tipped the impudent boy off his stolen throne.  Until then we would be fools to deny his sovereignty, and the Wydevilles were not fools.

Upon hearing that he had reached Stony Stratford my father and my brother Anthony, who was visiting us at the time, rode over to tender their submission and returned elated.  At least Father did; Anthony was more reticent.  I had seven sisters, two of whom were wed and gone to their husbands, and five brothers. Lionel, a clever boy, was presently at grammar school and hoping to go on to university and a career in the church.  The rest of us gathered in Mother’s solar when Father and Anthony returned from Stony Stratford.

“Of all the families in the neighborhood he has chosen to honor us,” Father crowed, puffing with pride like a bantam.  I think he forgot for a moment that he was speaking of the enemy.

Anthony, a gentle scholarly man but not lacking a healthy dose of cynicism, said:   “We are the most prominent family in the district.  He probably thinks we are rich and will impose a fine on us.”

“Understand, lad: We have no choice,” Father said.  “If the family fortunes are not to go into decline, we will have to submit, at least for a time, until Henry and Margaret have won back their kingdom.”   

“Are you so certain they will?”

“Of course, they will!” Father said.  Anything else was unthinkable.

“Is he as handsome as they say?” Mary wanted to know.  She was always full of romantic notions.

Father gave her a severe look.  “What has that to do with anything, child?”

“What did he say, Father?” I asked.  “Did he receive you kindly?”

“Very much so.  He struck me as a very personable young man.  He assured us that in his eyes we had done no wrong.  We were faithful to our king.  As our new king he commended us for our fidelity and hoped to command the same in time.” Father’s eyes opened wide as he looked around.

“It was graciously done,” Anthony conceded.  “Pardoned without pardon being asked.”

This caused a stir among us.  It was not what we expected of York’s son.

“Perhaps he isn’t as bad as we thought,” Anne murmured.

“Margaret would never be so forgiving,” said Mother, who had known her well.

“If he meant it,” Anthony grumbled. 

“He said he wants to rule a people who are reconciled to his rule, who will sustain and assist him in his endeavors to bring about a state of peace so that our country can heal of the wounds that have been inflicted on her in the recent past and grow strong and proud again.”

“Worthy goals,” I said.

“If he meant it,” Anthony said again.  It was hard for a man like him to throw off the shackles of an old allegiance without losing his personal integrity. 

Father shot him a look of exasperation.  “Perhaps it is no more than the idealism of youth.  We shall see.”

We discussed our strategy as if preparing for a battle and then my mother rose from her chair.  “Well, we had better be about our business.  We will entertain him as we would Henry himself.  We will not mention Henry or Margaret.  You will conduct yourselves like ladies and gentlemen and loyal subjects.” This was said with a pointed look at Mary and then at Anthony.

Far from having a fit, as Anne had said, my mother organized the household with her usual brisk efficiency.  She was up with the dawn to do the shopping herself rather than leave it to an underling, determined that nothing should go wrong on this important occasion.  She was not at all intimidated by the prospect of entertaining a king under her roof, for she had always moved in the very highest circles. 

In anticipation of his visit, the gold plate went into hiding, the hangings were taken down, my mother’s and my jewels, everything from bedcoverings to breviaries, any item that hinted at wealth was ruthlessly swept up and thrust into a storeroom.  My sisters, reduced to shrieking giddiness at the prospect of meeting this reputedly handsome king, were crushed when they were forbidden to dress in their best but rather in everyday clothes, so be it they were clean and tidy.  Mary was inconsolable because she had one of the new style truncated hennins and was unable to wear it.

In the midst of all this a lordly young man wearing the royal colors of blue and murrey rode into the courtyard to give my parents some indication of what they might expect and what was expected in return.  He trolled the house, inspected the kitchen, pantry, buttery and brewhouse, and discussed the menu with my mother and the cook, not failing to add his own suggestions: ‘And don’t stint.  His Highness has a large appetite.’ The poor display of pewter in the hall cupboard produced in him a look of pained dismay. 

“Have you no gold plate?” he enquired loftily.

My father spread his hands.  “As you see, we are a poor family.”

Whereupon, the lordly young man rattled off without apparent thought all the lands and manors my mother still owned and then suggested that since we had no gold plate of our own, perhaps we could borrow some from a neighbor.  His Highness would expect nothing less.  Somewhat red about the ears, my father agreed that might be possible.

The imminent arrival of the king threw the house into an uproar.  My sisters’ voices were shrill with excitement and my brothers were shouting to one another from various chambers.  There were slaps and tears in the kitchen.  Only Anthony was not caught up in the pandemonium.  He was sitting in the garden reading out loud, an island of calm, his wife curled at his feet listening.

Adding to the noise was my older son who was tearing around my chamber on a hobbyhorse, making various whooping and neighing sounds.  I was sitting at my dressing table examining my appearance, debating whether I wanted to meet the boy-king.  I knew I was beautiful.  I say it as a simple fact.  Men looked at me with appreciation, often with naked lust.  What I had heard of Edward of York did not inspire me to think he would be any different. I was only three months into mourning, which was reason enough to absent myself.