Queen of Trial and Sorrow (27 page)

Our little son was the clumsiest boy I had ever encountered.  He might be standing in one spot and then turn away only to, somehow, get his feet tangled up and fall over.  Or he might be talking over his shoulder and walk into a wall or door.  He fell down stairs and off his pony and regularly tripped over things invisible to anyone else, and although I feared he would suffer worse than the cuts and bruises he frequently sported, sometimes I couldn’t help but laugh at his antics.  He was such a dear little boy, very active and a joy to everyone who knew him.

Now he was relatively safe from harm: laid on his belly on the grass with his legs waving in the air and a stalk of grass dangling between his cherubic lips as he contemplated… what?  How wrong it was that his bride should be two years older than him?  What it meant to have a wife?  Trying to think if he knew anyone else who was married at four years of age?

Little George, released from his bindings, was laid on a blanket near me and my daughter Mary was sat beside him, tickling his belly and chin in an effort to make him laugh.  George was a lethargic and puny baby and I worried about him.  But the king would point out that his brother of Gloucester had been such a one and look at him now.

Gravid once more, I was sitting on a blanket with my ladies and Edward was sat with his back against the bole of a tree. Bessie, Cecily and Anne were playing pig-in-the-middle, far enough away that their girlish giggles scarcely intruded on the mellifluous voice of Will Berkeley, who was reading from Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, a popular and beautifully illustrated hagiography presented to the king by his mother as a New Year’s gift and which he had passed along to me.  I regretted that my husband, although an observant son of the church, was not an especially devout man.  He sinned frequently, shamelessly, and in the cheerful certainty that he had to do no more than confess, perform a light penance, and was then free to sin again. Then there was his deplorable habit of using the solemnities of Mass to conduct business with the chancellor or any other minister who happened to be handy.  His piety was like a spare cloak: he donned it when it suited him.  Not that he was ever impious, only rather casual in his observances.

Into this scene of domestic tranquility came the diminutive chancellor, a splash of bright color emerging from the trees.  Everyone stopped what they were doing.  Even the girls seemed to recognize that here was an odd event.  For the chancellor had been left behind in Westminster, and only the most urgent business would bring him to Windsor in person rather than send a messenger.  I felt a wave of resentment that such a rare day must be spoilt by the intrusion of state affairs.

The king’s greeting was wary.  “This is a surprise, my lord bishop, but you are welcome.  What brings you to Windsor?”

The chancellor glanced around, as if wondering if his news should be shared so publicly, or in front of the children, but the girls had already resumed their game and Richard was still contemplating his fate.  Only Mary was paying any attention, and the adults, all of who were consumed with curiosity.  Evidently deciding that the matter would soon be common knowledge anyway, the chancellor said softly: “Your Highness, I came in haste and in person because the matter concerns the Duke of Clarence.”

Ah, I should have guessed; I should have known that when our peace was disrupted he would be responsible. 

“What has he done this time?” Edward said woodenly, wearily.

“His Grace forced his way into the council chamber with the Minorite preacher Doctor John Goddard, who, perhaps your Highness will remember, was the very man who rationalized and defended Henry of Lancaster’s resumption of the throne at Paul’s Cross in ’70.  The fellow read out to the council a statement made by Sir Thomas Burdett from the scaffold, in which the condemned man reiterated his innocence and his loyalty to the Crown.  The duke then claimed that a plot had been hatched by his own enemies – and we would all know who they were – to bring about the downfall of a valuable retainer and dear friend, and thus taint him, the duke, with the stigma of treason.” The chancellor, whose especial charge was the law courts, huffed out his chest.  “His Grace then went on to decry the kind of justice dispensed in this land!”

It needed not to be said; the unspoken words hung in the air, falling on ready ears like birds alighting on branches: This from the man who had bullied a jury to bring in guilty verdicts on spurious charges.

Edward, whose face had remained impassive throughout, said: “Chancellor, you need not have ridden in haste the thirty miles from London to tell me this.  It is a serious but not an urgent matter.  Now that you are here, pray join us.  As you see, we are at our leisure.  Fetch the chancellor a cup of wine.  There is food on the table if you’re hungry.  I recommend the pigeon pie, and there are snails.  Have you ever tried them?  Fat and juicy, delectable.”

“Your Highness is gracious.  I will be happy to partake in a moment.  After I have concluded this matter.” He went on carefully, a man who had witnessed the king’s outbursts of temper, and didn’t wish to provoke one.  “Perhaps this is a small matter compared to the duke’s earlier… ah, transgressions.  But surely your Highness must see, as do the lords of your council, that his temerity is dangerous and escalating.  It is evident that he believes himself to be beyond the law.  He makes a mockery of justice.  He is, put simply, out of control.  Your Highness and the kingdom itself will know no peace until he is curbed.”

“And how,” said the king with grating precision, “do you suggest I curb him?”

The chancellor licked his lips.  A servant was kneeling beside him holding a cup of wine but he ignored the man.  Sweat was breaking out on his brow, there in the shade of the spreading oak tree.  He really was a rather timorous man.  He should have thought to bring a delegation.

I came to his aid.  “Sire, one would have hoped that the execution of Burdett and Stacy would serve as a warning to the duke that he ought to mend his ways, but his appearance before the council proves that such is not the case.  Perhaps he needs a sterner lesson.”

“Such as?  Shall I throw him in prison?  Keep him there for the rest of his life?  Or shall I give him the kindness of the axe?”

“A short term will perhaps scare him enough that he will stop his dangerous mischief-making.”

“Madam, you have been lusting for his blood for almost a decade,” he said harshly.  I couldn’t deny it.

Finding his courage, the chancellor said: “I am charged by the lords of the council to remind your Highness that you gave us your word.  When the Burdett case first came to light we implored you to agree to have the duke examined.  Though you were reluctant to do so at that time, you gave your word that if he transgressed again, you would act.  I have come, Highness, to demand on behalf of the council that you redeem that promise.”

“Demand?” echoed the king.  Before my eyes an unhealthy red was beginning to mottle his face.  Ever since the earliest days of his reign he had left his council members in no doubt that their job was to advise and support him in the implementation of his policies.  They did not dictate to him; not even Warwick had been permitted to do that, so it was no surprise to me that the chancellor’s choice of word aroused him to fury.  I wanted to tamp it down, if only for the sake of the children who never saw their father anything but merry, but didn’t know how it might be done.  Instead, I signaled their nursemaids to take them back to the castle.

“Who do you think you are to demand anything of me, your prince?  A presumptuous priest!” the king was shouting as the children were rounded up and led away.  “How dare you think you can dictate to me?  You and the other members of my council are there to serve!  Do you understand – to
serve?
  All of you have grown fat and rich thanks to me!  Your titles, your offices, your power and prominence, all have come from my hand!  You have eaten at my board, shared my wine, jostled one another for my favor, and what do I get in return?  You think you can undermine my authority?”

By this time, the chancellor was on his knees, his hands clasped at his breast, while the king’s words fell on his silver head like hammer blows.  There was no more he could say.  When a man had reached such a point as the king had, it were best to let him alone, to give him time to calm down and allow reason to do its quiet work.

I noted with growing alarm how unhealthy Edward’s complexion was, how the veins in his neck obtruded like knotted rope and the rasping noise he made as he snatched for breath.  Lately I had begun to see the weight of years and cares in him.  And I thought: For God’s sake, will you act!  No, not for God’s sake but for our Ned’s, the sweet little boy we waited so long for.  For his sake, don’t let the man whose name begins with the letter
G
outlive you!

I repudiated the thought immediately, as if to acknowledge such a fear was to make it real.  Edward was not an old man, just turned thirty-five, in fact, and what was that when the cardinal and his brother, the Earl of Essex, were more than twice that age, and Lord Wenlock had been in his sixties when he fought at Tewkesbury.  He didn’t look old, either, growing in corpulence, yes, but still handsome and still, and always would be no matter how long he lived, a figure of majesty.  It was only at times like that, when he let temper get the better of him that I felt… I don’t know… as if some vital organ must burst from the strain.  But there was no question that the years of ease had been hard on a constitution bred to constant activity and intermittent warfare.  Now he embraced indolence like a new and cherished friend and gave himself over to immoderate appetites; sat longer at table, lingered over his wine, allowed his council to attend to mundane business without him, and yet had plenty of energy to stay up late at night, roistering with his friends, principally Hastings, but also, I’m sorry to say, my son Thomas, and no doubt in the company of Mistress Shore and others of her ilk.

We heard evensong in St. George’s chapel, where the work was coming along splendidly now that Edward had a growing income to spend on it and other building projects.  His mood softened, helped along by an interview with the Bishop of Salisbury, within whose diocese Windsor lay, who had been appointed surveyor and master of works.  His great chamber was full of people that evening, playing cards or other games or just gossiping, and there was music.  We were as private as we ever were except in bed, sitting together on a bench in a window recess.   Foolish of me, I suppose, but I had to speak.

“Do you remember John Davy?  He was a servant of yours who struck another in the court of the King’s Bench and was sentenced to lose the offending hand for contempt.  His people petitioned you for mercy but you said – and I have never forgotten your words: ‘No one need fear our justice and no one shall hold it in contempt.  We shall have justice in England for every man alike.’”

He smiled cynically.  “Ah, the idealism of youth – where did it go?  Oh, yes, I remember now.  Swallowed whole, ground up and spit out by monstrous treasons.”

“Edward, you must take action.  For once, obey the dictates of your head, not your heart.”

“He is my brother.” The same old tired excuse.  “I cannot just pluck him from my heart.”

I said, softly, for his ears only: “Why not have him quietly put away?  Or, if you wish, I’ll have it done.  You need never know.”

He turned his face to me.  The blue eyes had power enough to make men tremble.  They were as cold as I had ever seen them: eyes in which was remembrance of nothing but an old hostility.

“This is none of your affair, Madam,” he said.  “Stay out of it and mind your own concerns.”      

I could feel my face burning with humiliation.  Never before had he spoken to me so and I wondered: Had he no love left for me?  Was I now no more than a brood mare?  My wretchedness only increased when he walked directly up to Mistress Shore and slipped an arm around her waist.  I had seen such gestures before toward one of my sisters, or a niece or one of my ladies, and knew they meant nothing, for he was an affectionate and demonstrative man.  But this was Jane Shore, the resident mistress, and I didn’t fail to understand the significance of his conduct.

Divining that it was time I retired, I curtsied to him and left the room with my ladies assembling behind me.

……….

Very soon after returning to Westminster, I was informed by Lord Hastings that the king required my presence in the Painted Chamber at the hour of sext.  I didn’t know why and wouldn’t demean myself by asking the Lord Chamberlain.  I did ask Alice Fogge, who could generally be counted on to be fully informed, but even she didn’t know, so I sent her off to seek out her old gossips, one of whom was Hastings, in order to find out.  When she came back it was with the news that Clarence had been summoned to the palace where he was to be arrested.  Lady Fogge, one of my Haute cousins, was so full of glee she could hardly contain it.  So was I, but I must contain it.  Not by word or gesture, must I betray my very great sense of relief and satisfaction in front of the king.

At sext, we assembled in the Painted Chamber, the king and I in our chairs of state, and the room crowded with lords and courtiers and court satellites, filling the space with the heat of their bodies and their various smells.  Even the mayor and aldermen were there in their sober city clothes, like crows among birds of bright plumage, no doubt to witness the event and let the truth of it be known in the city.  

Everyone who knew Edward well knew that the years of strife had soured his sunny disposition, left him disillusioned, sick to death of war and uncertainty and less inclined to deal mercifully with those who disturbed his peace.  Everyone except poor foolish Clarence, who thought that kinship was all the armor he needed.  He didn’t think it was possible that he, so charmed, so exalted, a Prince of the Blood, could be arrested.