Queen of Trial and Sorrow (13 page)

In their efforts to keep order in London, the city fathers were aided by the Burgundian ambassadors, who were trumpeting all over the city that violence was contrary to the king’s will and that of their master the duke.  From whom an open letter to the citizens arrived promising help and protection providing they remained faithful to their sovereign lord and the Burgundian alliance, and threatening dire consequences if they did not.

What I heard of the meetings of the common council was that if there were to be civil war again, London would put herself first and maintain a neutral position.  My secretary said there was a want of testicular vigor among the aldermen, and this little gem was repeated throughout the Tower. 

News trickled in slowly.  Thomas Herbert had been taken and beheaded without trial as his brothers had been.  Lord Stafford had been put to death at Bridgewater.  Edward wouldn’t miss Humphrey Stafford, but the three Herbert brothers were friends of his boyhood.  They had been good men, loyal and brave.

It was only a few days after I received news of these executions that Lord Dudley came to see me again.  Apparently he had appointed himself my newsbringer.  Lord Berners was with him and both men were so grave-faced that I knew it could only be the worst of tidings.

“Be brave, Madam,” my chamberlain murmured, as if to a child with a scraped knee.    

Anne sat beside me and held my hand tightly as I braced myself for what was to come.

“Madam,” Dudley said gently, “it concerns your father and brother, Sir John.”

No, I thought.  No!  Dear God, spare me this.  Or perhaps I spoke the words out loud, for Dudley lowered his eyes and waited a moment.  A stifled sob came from Anne and a sigh went through my ladies.

“Tell me,” I said.  “All of it.”

My father, Anthony and John had been with the king in the north until it became clear there was no safety for them with him, when he told them to go into hiding until a better day.  My father and John had not heeded this sensible advice and had gone to our manor at Grafton, from where they were seized, carried off to Coventry and executed in the presence of Warwick, Clarence and the archbishop.  The king, who had been moved to Warwick Castle, was brought back to Coventry to witness the executions, as if to set the seal of royal justice on an act of murder.  The only comfort my mother, sisters and I could find in this unspeakable crime was that they had died nobly.  Only twenty-four, my poor brother went to his death exuding the colossal cockiness with which he had made his dauntless way through his short life.

I felt as if the heart had been torn right out of me.  Kneeling before the Virgin at my
prie deux,
I lit two candles.  They blazed in the dark like two new souls in the great unknown of the hereafter.  I crushed my hands together and began to pray, the words emerging from between my lips in raspy little wisps of sound, like dry leaves stirring in the wind:
Dearest Father in heaven, take into your care the souls of your servants, Richard Wydeville and John Wydeville.  Forgive them their sins and give them life everlasting in the name of Our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
 

The household went into mourning.  We sang the
Kyrie eleison
in St. John’s chapel.  All my thoughts now were of vengeance.  It might take years, but one day I would be avenged on the vile traitors who had brought this devastation on my family.

“I’ve heard it said they don’t suffer.”

“So they say, Madam.” Alice Fogge knelt to offer me a hot posset to help me sleep.  “A blow to the back of the neck is all.  If the executioner does his job right they can’t feel anything once the spinal column is severed. It is a quick and compassionate death.”

“How do you know?  How does anyone know?”

She had no answer for me.  I sipped the hot drink.  My heart felt like a leaden weight in my breast, achingly swollen with pity and sorrow.

I said: “When was their trial?  What was their crime?  They were murdered for no better reason than that the king advanced and favored them.”

“Loyalty is a harsh master, dear lady,” Alice said.

I demanded of the people gathered in my hall, wherever I found a dozen or so together: Is loyalty to the king treason now?  I forced myself to say words that almost choked me: “It isn’t who was murdered that matters so much as the manner of it, and make no mistake, it was murder.  If the father and brother of the queen can be put to death without benefit of trial, who among you is safe?”

……….

My lords of Gloucester and Hastings had been with the king in the north and were now back in the capital.  They came to see me in the Tower.  Hastings brought gifts: a dish of clotted cream for me and a bag of candied violets for the children, which was good of him.

He had not been named in the manifesto, despite the fact that he was Edward’s very good friend.  Was that because he was wed to Warwick’s sister?  Did he have his wife to thank for that?  Did Warwick still have hopes of turning him?  Or was he not considered a sufficient threat?

I had my concerns about Gloucester.  In spite of his small size, there was a core of steely determination in him, a stubborn spirit, and I was glad that he had chosen to remain faithful to the king, even though he had been offered the same inducements as his brother: marriage to a daughter of Warwick.  It cannot have been an easy choice because he admired Warwick, a man who seized destiny and molded it to his own desires.  It was hard to imagine Warwick failing at anything.  Even his appalling defeat at Second St. Albans he had managed to turn into an astonishing success by having Edward acclaimed king less than two months later.

But Edward was the big brother all little boys ought to have, not only strong and brave and worthy of admiration, but always kind, thoughtful, patient and no matter how pressing his own affairs he’d always found time for the concerns of a puny brother who lacked all his splendid qualities. 

Even back then, when the man was just emerging from the boy, I sometimes wondered how much Gloucester’s choice was based on brotherly love and how much on pragmatism.  Had he given his support to Warwick as Clarence had, he would have stood always in Clarence’s shadow.  It would have been a return to the nursery days, with the capricious but attractive George demanding and getting all the attention while the quieter boy was overlooked.  At least with Edward he had a chance to shine.

He didn’t say much, but was he really thinking about the fate that might await his brother?  Or was he thinking – and I don’t know what put it into my mind – if Edward is removed, that only leaves George between the crown and me and he’s a damnable traitor.  I wished I could look into his eyes at that moment but he almost always kept them averted.  He had grey eyes, moody eyes, fathomless as a morning mist; only sometimes if he was taken by surprise, the mist swirled, parted, and you could catch a brief glimpse, a fleeting shadow of what was going on behind that unsmiling façade. I didn’t doubt that he loved his brother, both brothers.  But a crown…what would a man not do to possess it?

I knew neither one liked my family, or me, and yet I felt Gloucester was sincere when he offered me his condolences in his usual stiff manner.  Well, he did know what it was like to lose father and brother in one foul blow. 

The news came that my captive husband had been removed to Middleham, farther from London and his friends.  I tried to imagine him there, gazing blank-eyed at those empty moors, surrounded by Warwick’s servants, Warwick’s officers, not a friendly face in sight.  Day after day of tedium: debating over breakfast what to do to pass the time.  Play a board game with his dull servants?  Read one of the two books he had packed in his baggage, again?  Practice at the butts with the garrison?  Sit in the sun contemplating the shape of clouds?  Not enough for a man with his energy, his capacity for both work and enjoyment.  Never before had he been so confined or so lacking in convivial companionship.  How hard it must have been for him to bear so much inactivity, and worse: not knowing what was going on in his kingdom.  After two months of captivity, was his brave heart beginning to despair?

They said he embraced the expedient, showed a smiling face to all and signed whatever Warwick put before him without demur.  In return for his compliance he was rewarded with comfortable quarters, good food and wine, the run of the castle, and the unfailing respect of its denizens.  It was a pantomime: Edward playing the role of grateful guest to Warwick’s generous host. 

Warwick held the kingdom in the palm of his hand and the king was in his clutches, too.  Finally power was his, power denied him first by York, then by his son; power that he craved as other men craved sex or food, with a passionate, unassuagable hunger; power that to him was the breath of life and the ultimate and supreme accolade.  But what would he do with it. 

  A thought came to me one night when I was trying to find sleep.  Warwick was probably the only man in the entire history of the world to have held two kings captive at the same time.  What balm it must have been to his shaken conceit.  I wondered if he would write of it to his dear friend Louis.

……….

An old enemy, Humphrey Neville of Brancepeth, who belonged to the senior and less prominent branch of the huge Neville clan, saw the division in the Yorkist ranks as an opportunity to raise revolt once again and call for the restoration of Henry VI.  Not at all what Warwick wanted, or expected.  Since he had disbanded Conyers’ men as well as the Kentishmen he had raised and so had no men under arms, he sent out a call for troops to help him put down the revolt in the north.

His call to arms was largely ignored.  Men said openly they wouldn’t fight for him while he held the king captive.  He needed parliament to legitimize what he’d done and confirm him in power.  Only with parliamentary approval could his seizure of the king’s person and the execution of his opponents without trial be wiped clean of the taint of treason and given the sanctity of Law.  But parliament wouldn’t grant him what he wanted unless he could show that he could keep order in the realm, and without that sanction he wouldn’t last. 

He had no choice but to allow the king to be seen publicly, riding with him to York and then on to the royal castle of Pontefract.  As always Edward played his part well, smiling and waving at his people and showing by his friendly demeanor that all was well between him and his mighty cousin.

After that Warwick had all the men he needed and led them north himself.  How must it have felt to ride against the old enemy, to fight a straightforward battle without all the painful clutter of divided loyalties and half remembered affections?  And at the end, to cut off a couple more heads without a qualm?

By the time Humphrey Neville met his well-deserved end, Gloucester and Hastings, frustrated because it generally took four days for news to reach London from Yorkshire, were on their way north with a bevy of other great lords.  “I don’t know what we’ll do,” Hastings said when he came to bid me farewell, and then added: “Whatever we have to do to free the king.  The situation has become untenable.  Even Warwick must see that.”

……….

Lying in my husband’s arms, spent and sated, flesh on heated flesh, I said: “I knew you would prevail in the end.”

“I was very fortunate.  The realm isn’t yet ready to dispense with my services.  But for a while I felt very vulnerable.  Not a good feeling at all.” 

When it was clear that Warwick could not control the unrest in the kingdom, he had no choice but to submit, which he did with very ill grace.  London showed its loyalty by welcoming the king into the city with great rejoicing.  The mayor and aldermen dressed in robes of scarlet and two hundred guildsmen clad in livery of fidelity blue, came out to meet him and conducted him on a long route through the city so that the people could see he was hale, hearty and free. 

He took my chin between his thumb and forefinger to turn my face up to his.  “I was pleased to learn that you kept a cool head in the crisis and did nothing to exacerbate the situation.”  

I plucked at his chest hairs with my fingers and rubbed my face against them; the coarseness against my soft skin gave me pleasure.  Everything about his body gave me pleasure.  He lay on his back with an arm flung over his eyes, looking no different than he had when I had bidden him farewell at Fotheringhay.  But I knew the wound had gone deep and was still raw and bleeding.

With the deaths if my father and brother I felt the heart had gone right out of me.  “You must punish them,” I said.  “You see that now, don’t you?”

The fire settled in the grate with a sound like a word:
Hush
.  That day a high wind had stripped the dun-colored leaves from the trees and set them whirling, spiraling, dancing like courtiers in complex sets.  I could hear them tapping against the windows.

“Edward?”

He brought my hand to his mouth and began kissing the fingers one by one. “I missed you, sweetheart.  You and our daughters.”

“How will you punish them?”

He heaved a deep sigh.  “There’s nothing I can do.  Much as I know they deserve punishment, much as I would like to make an example of them, I cannot.  How can I punish my brother?  What would you suggest?  The block?  Lifelong imprisonment?  Confiscation of his lands and goods?  No.  None of these is acceptable for the brother of the king.  And as for Warwick, he is too powerful.  Any move I made against him would risk alienating John Neville, inflaming the north and plunging the country back into civil war.  A thing to be avoided at any cost.  I can’t risk that.”