Queen of Trial and Sorrow (3 page)

The fair brows went up; the blue eyes clouded.  I think he was more surprised than angry or disappointed.  It was a word he was unaccustomed to hearing, especially from the mouths of those upon whom his attention had fallen.  He had, of course, been utterly spoiled by women throwing themselves at him, falling at his feet.  He didn’t have to pursue them; generally a little artful persuasion was enough to coax the object of his lust into his bed. 

Then he smiled, and it was like the sun coming out. “Are you so bashful because of the spies?”

“Spies?” I echoed, and he nodded toward the house.  Every window that looked down upon the garden had two or even three faces peering out.

……….

I cannot deny that I was both flattered and thrilled by the attentions of the king, and my family were, if possible, even more flattered and thrilled, with the exception of Father and Anthony who opined frequently that he ought not to be let loose around decent women.  But what I really wanted was to marry again, and quickly while I still had my looks, for I had little else to recommend me.  What is a woman alone but a useless beggar, a drain on her family’s resources, growing old and bitter without ever having a bowl or spoon to call her own and never being in a position to help her children rise in the world?  There were suitors once my year of mourning was up.  They sighed at my beauty and toasted my eyes, which were like woodland pools, like emeralds, like wells of unending happiness.  But I quickly learned that beauty is a poor substitute for a dowry, and when they discovered my circumstances expressions of undying devotion turned to regret.  Hand over heart, a forlorn wave, and another prospect was gone down the lane.

Another visit: He was on his way north to conduct the campaign in person.  He was always on his way somewhere or returning from somewhere.  We took a blanket out to the orchard.  It was in the season when the trees were in full flower.  I spread out the blanket in the shade of a tree and he shook the trunk until tiny petals fell like snow.  We were alone, where we could not be overlooked from the house, alone with the bees in the blossoms.

“Is it true,” I asked, “as I’ve heard, that you are a thriving merchant?”

Father thought it a scandal, but mother said because he wasn’t born to be king, he tended to be unconventional and what was wrong with that?

“I must do something magnificently innovative to make the Crown solvent.”

“The merchants will say you have an unfair advantage.”

He laughed.  “They might have a point.”

“There are many who’ll say it’s demeaning; that a king should not involve himself in something as crassly commercial as trade.”  I rather felt that way myself.

“True.  But only those who don’t know how crassly commercial is the business of running a kingdom.”

“What do you trade?”

“Only wool and woolfells so far, but next year I intend to ship some woolen cloths from Coventry to Flanders.  Try as they might the Flemings cannot replicate Coventry’s blue and make it fast.  I want to improve England’s cloth trade and feel I can better understand the complexities from the inside.  Later perhaps I shall ship other things, such as tin and lead, though they aren’t nearly so lucrative as wool.  I intend to make exorbitant profits.” 

He sprawled out beside me, propping his head on one hand.  “Will you like me better if I’m rich?”

“I like you well enough now,” I said brazenly.

I turned my head to look at him through lowered lashes.  It was all the invitation he needed.  He leaned over and kissed the corner of my mouth and then my lips.  A tongue of flame darted to my loins.  I moved away with a sigh. 

“Why do you keep coming back?  Why?”

“Because you are a Circe, a siren.  Because I cannot resist you.  I think you know you have snared my heart.”

  I veiled my eyes.  “It is to no avail,” I said sadly.  “I know I am not good enough to be your wife but I am too good to be your mistress.”

At these words it seemed to me he withdrew slightly.

“Madam…” he said. He had lately taken to calling me Bess but now it was back to formality  “…there is no dishonor in being the mistress of the king.  You would be envied and celebrated.”

“But I don’t wish to be envied and celebrated.  I wish to be wed and cherished. When I go to a new husband, I hope to do so with an unblemished reputation.”

“Unblemished!  A liaison with the king would enhance not
blemish
your reputation.  You have too much pride.”

I risked a peek at his profile.  I think he was quite mystified that I wasn’t willing to jump into his bed.  He still had the vanity of a boy and I had wounded it. 

“Please, your Grace – ”

“God’s Breath, I am a man!  I have needs.  Don’t women have such needs?”

“Only wantons indulge them lightly.”

“I assure you, many women, very many, are not so fastidious as you!”

He was becoming angry now.  I was going to lose him.  I put my face in my hands to hide my distress.  “Oh, why do you come here?  You torment me!”

After a moment, he pushed my hands away and tilted my chin up.  “Don’t cry, sweetheart.  I can’t bear to see you unhappy.”

Sweetheart.  He called me sweetheart. 

I am quite sure he was genuinely perplexed by an attitude he had never encountered before, and went away enduring all a young man’s wretchedness at an unexpected rejection.  When he left me I didn’t expect him to come back, but he did.  He always came back.  I didn’t understand at first why he didn’t move on to an easier conquest. 

As for me, I was fully aware that I was pushing him away with one hand while beckoning him on with the other.  It wasn’t calculated.  The thought of never seeing him again was unbearable, yet I couldn’t bring myself to yield.  Whenever I saw him coming down the lane my heart sang as sweetly as s thrush in the hedgerow.  Plato says the madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings.  I didn’t want to love him.  God knows, I fought against it.  Why did it have to be him, a man as far above me in station as a distant star and for who I could never be anything but a brief dalliance? 

He called me his green-eyed goddess and said I had as much ice as ichor in my blood.  I played the part well.  He would have been surprised to know that I yearned for him when he was gone, remembering each caress, each stolen kiss in my lonely bed at night, becoming drenched between my thighs at the mere thought of lying naked in those powerful arms, his long body straining against mine.  I wanted him, ached for him, lusted as fiercely as he, but not for one quick hot tumble, not even for long enough to bear a royal bastard as Lady Lucy had.  But for always.

“I wish I didn’t feel as I do,” I sighed to my mother.  “I know nothing can come of it.”

She was snipping early lilies, examining them as closely as she did eels in the market, before placing them in the basket I carried. “That’s how it was for me too,” she said with a smile in which there was more than a trace of lasciviousness.  “Ah, daughter, I well remember how the blood runs hot when a certain man walks into the room.”  My father was notably uxorious, and my youngest sister was younger than my eldest boy.  Perhaps the blood still ran hot.

“Why do you fight it?  Give him what he wants.”

“What!  Become his mistress?” I was shocked that she would suggest it.

“Certainly.  If you want to bed him, why not?  Think of what it would mean to your family.” She straightened and turned to me, a bright lily in her hand.  “Think of all the favors that would come our way.  Your father would be advanced and honors would trickle down to your brothers.  Titled bachelors would queue up to wed your sisters, dowry or no dowry.”

“But what of me?  I would be nothing but a whore, adored one day and cast off the next.”

She gave a characteristic shrug.  “Perhaps.  But if you were clever, and you are clever, you could secure your future.  Think about never being in want again.  Think about your sons.  You could obtain lands for them that would make the loss of Astley and Bradgate negligible.”

The king had asked his good friend Lord Hastings, who was my overlord in Leicestershire, to look into that matter, and he had come to the conclusion that Lady Ferrers had the right of it.  I was at a severe disadvantage because my former mother-in-law was now wed to Sir John Bourchier who was first cousin to the king through his father’s sister.  I was furious and disappointed and not at all certain that Lord Hastings had rendered an impartial decision.  It was the beginning of a lifelong bias against him.

On the other hand, I was pleased that the king had not used the fact that I wanted something from him as a weapon of seduction. 

  “And think what a handsome young man he is, and how pleasant nights in his bed would be.”  Mother gave a voluptuous chuckle.  “I envy you! 
Carpe deum,
Bess!  Seize the day!”  Which is what she had done.

My mother was born Jacquetta of Luxemburg, sister to the present count of St. Pol.  As a young girl she had wed the Duke of Bedford, brother to Henry V.  Until the coming of Margaret of Anjou she was the first lady of the realm.  After Bedford’s death she wed my father, Sir Richard Wydeville, who had been the duke’s chamberlain, a person far beneath her in rank.  Furthermore, as a royal lady, she was not free to marry where she wished; it was for the king and council to bestow her hand.  The marriage created a huge scandal, but it was done and nothing could undo it.  My father was imprisoned for a time and only released when the council levied a huge fine against them.  In order to pay it my mother had to sell some of her dower lands.  What was worse was that they were ostracized and castigated.  They – and to a lesser extent, we their children – were subjected to sniggers, slights and overt insults.  Our society does not look kindly upon those who rise above their station. 

For many years we were social outcasts, and then very slowly we came up out of the mire.  My father was given small commissions and ennobled as Lord Rivers to make him a more fitting spouse for my mother, who always styled herself the Dowager Duchess of Bedford.  My mother became a close friend of Queen Margaret, and finally, when I was chosen as one of her ladies-in-waiting, we began to believe that the Wydevilles were on the rise again and the hard years were behind us.

We are all shaped by our experiences.  So, I say in truth that while my refusal of the king was due in part to an inherent pride that would not permit me to become the mistress of any man, it was also due in large part to the experiences of youth.  Over the years my parents had worked patiently and wisely to restore the family’s honor.  How could I, the eldest child, bring disgrace upon my house?  I could not.  And then there was Anthony.  My brother was the most thoroughly decent and honorable man I had ever known.  To be the brother of a light woman would have besmirched him, would have reduced him even in his own eyes. 

But if not his mistress, what then?

……….

A letter came from Anthony.  Though I have lost much, I still have it in my possession.

The fighting centers on three Northumbrian castles.  Neither side seems to be able to hold on to them.  Usually they fall due to treachery than any assault.  When Margaret learned the king was coming north to conduct the campaign in person she fled by sea back to Scotland taking Henry and their son with her.  They ran into a severe storm and were almost dashed upon the rocks, but they managed to get off the ship onto a small beach before it went down.  They were later rescued by fishermen and taken to Berwick.  Margaret has such adventures, doesn’t she?

His Grace the king only made it as far as Durham before being felled by an attack of measles.  Don’t fret, Bess, your royal swain’s youth and constitution, along with the excellent care of his physician already has him on the road to recovery.  Master Hatclyffe says he is a good king but a bad, bad patient.  His bed is always strewn with papers; he has clerks and secretaries in attendance and receives couriers every day.  Even in his sickness he manages to get through an extraordinary amount of work.

With luck the fighting will be over by the time he is fully recovered. Bamborough surrendered on Christmas Eve and we’re negotiating with Dunstanborough.  Lord Hastings has already gone back to his palace duties.  The rest of us are hopeful that we won’t have to spend another winter up here. 

I have lost my copy of the Consolation of Philosophy. Actually, I think someone stole it.  Can you find and send me another, also, some woolen hose, the thicker the better.

God have you all in his tender care.

“I can’t see Anthony as a soldier,” seventeen year-old John said.  “The king ought to have sent me.  I’ve a mighty sword arm, Father says.”

“You’ve a mighty mouth too,” I said, ruffling his hair.

In spite of my new Yorkist leanings, I thought there was something quite admirable about Margaret’s refusal to give up. 

The king’s wooing of me continued for three years.  I am no dreamer, but at some point I began to dream that I might become more to him than a light o’ love, a passing fancy.  I am no gambler either. (What woman can afford to be?  We put our faith and stake our futures in material things and certainties.) But having dreamed the impossible, I embarked upon the greatest gamble of my life, exploiting his passion for me to its ultimate, daring and improbable conclusion, in the belief that when a young man who could have almost any woman he wanted was confronted by one who denied him, he would move heaven and earth to have her.  If I lost I would spend the rest of my life in obscurity, perhaps as the wife of another nonentity like John Grey; but if I won I would have the most attractive and exciting man I had ever known – and a crown. 

May of  ’64: he was on his way north, not to join the fighting this time but to negotiate a truce with the Scottish ambassadors.  The previous year he had made a truce with Louis of France, and where France went Scotland followed.  If he succeeded in making a truce with Scotland, Margaret and Henry would be bereft of powerful friends and he would be more secure on his throne. 

Having stopped for the night at his castle of Fotheringhay, he rode to Grafton for a brief visit, bringing me a gift of a merlin, a particularly suitable bird for a lady because it was one of the smallest of the breed.  Off we went into the noonday sunshine to fly the birds, accompanied by other members of my family and the king’s retinue and a few servants.

According to the rules of falconry, the king alone was permitted to own gyrfalcons, the biggest and most beautiful of the species, and he had several in his mews.  But the gyrfalcon was very much like the merlin in its hunting habits, flying low to the ground in wide circles, fierce, unblinking eyes alert for any movement that would indicate the presence of a small animal in the long grass or a plump bird.  In his opinion the peregrine was the most spectacular and provided the best sport.  And he was right.  I was breathless with excitement as I watched the magnificent bird fly into the blue sky high above a motley flock startled by beaters out of the marsh.  Higher and higher it went until it was little more than a speck circling on currents of warm air, wings outspread and motionless, as it selected a tidbit from the feast spread below. 

“Five marks she selects a heron, Will,” he said to Lord Hastings, who stroked his jaw, appearing to ponder.

“Do you
have
five marks, Sire?”

I thought: such impertinence.  But the king was laughing.

“You know I don’t.  If you win you’ll have to join a multitude of other creditors.”

“I trust you, Sire, so I’ll take your wager.” 

The peregrine began her plummet earthward, straight and true as an arrow loosed from a bow, and selected a heron, its wings flapping lazily, long legs dangling behind as it sailed majestically above the water, unaware of the danger hurtling from above.  Gathering momentum with every second, the falcon folded her wings as she stooped, and struck the bigger bird on the wing with a tremendous impact. 

“No creature in the world can reach the incredible speed of a peregrine in its stoop,” Edward informed me. 

I wasn’t so engrossed in the struggle in the sky that I failed to notice his arm had gone around my waist, his hand resting intimately on my hip.  My breath was coming fast and when the falcon seized the heron in her talons I clapped my hands together. 

Later we picnicked under a cluster of willows, waited on by the servants of Grafton.   We sat in silence for a while.  Our fingers entwined surreptitiously, eyes seldom straying from the other’s face.  I’m sure we were both wishing we were alone.

When we had dusted off the crumbs, he took me by the hand and led me a short distance away – not so far that we couldn’t be seen by our companions – and trapped me against a tree. The breeze fluttered the leaves in the canopy above and the dappled light shifted.  He took my chin between thumb and forefinger and tilted my head up.  His eyes intent on mine, he said – and I’ll never forget his words: “Give me a kiss, sweetheart, and I’ll give you a crown.”

My breath caught in my throat.  It was as if the very air had retreated and I could not breathe.  I searched his face to make sure he was serious because he had a deplorable habit of joking about serious matters, but I saw that he was serious.  He was.  It was not our first kiss.  Sometimes his kisses were infinitely gentle, as if my lips were rose petals, easily bruised, and sometimes he touched his tongue to mine, but when they grew too hot I was obliged to firmly restrain his ardor.  Now when he lifted his head, he gave me a still-boyish smile, mischievous and impenitent.  “Is a crown worth two?” he said.  I could well understand how so many women had jumped into his bed.

……….

This time when he left he took my father with him.  Tell no one, he said.  Until it’s done it must be our secret. He said we would marry as soon as he returned and it shouldn’t be long.  And since we were practically betrothed, could we..? No, Sire, I wasn’t born yesterday.

Life resumed its well-worn pattern.  Lionel came home from school for the summer.  I enjoyed my siblings.  I particularly liked those evenings we spent in the solar or, on warm days, in the garden sitting on a patch of grass.  When Anthony was with us he would offer a philosophical proposition for discussion or John would tell a story.  John could make an adventure out of a chance encounter with a woodsman.  His stories were always funny, never edifying.  And sometimes Mother would weigh in with some anecdote from her girlhood in a country none of us knew.

Plague broke out in London.  When the number of dead reached two hundred a day it was declared an epidemic.  The courts closed until Michaelmas term and everyone who was able fled the city for their country houses or the homes of friends.  Since it lay close to Watling Street, Grafton played host to many overnight guests.  We heard how Warwick’s brother, Lord Montagu, had defeated the Duke of Somerset and executed him and several more of Margaret’s captains on his authority as Warden of the East March.  The presence of his enemies on the border had been Edward’s chief concern, apart from his pitiful penury, ever since he had assumed the crown.  They had used Northumberland, where they had many adherents, as a portal to move back and forth across the border with impunity.  It was critical to bring this turbulent and troublesome area under his control.  With his successes, Montagu had gone a long way to achieving this aim.  As a reward for his sterling services, the king created him Earl of Northumberland, an honor Warwick had wanted for him for a long time.  The best news of all was that the king had concluded a fifteen year truce with the Scots.  They would have to withdraw their aid from Margaret now.  Her best general was dead.  The war was over.

But of the king coming south there was no news. 

There were more letters from Anthony, giving us details about the negotiations and the intrigues behind the scenes.  I brooded.  I would stand at a window overlooking the village street, willing him to appear, or at least a messenger in the blue and murrey of York.  I began to fear that he was playing with me, that his proposal had been an impulse, since regretted, and he had indeed moved on to an easier conquest. 

While my hands were busy with some dreary chore, my tortured mind went over all the reasons he
shouldn’t
wed me.  No reigning English king had married an Englishwoman since the Norman Conquest (as I learned from Anthony); reigning English kings always, always,
always
, married foreign princesses upon the advice of their council and in order to bring some advantage to the kingdom.  No English king had wed in secret.  None had wed a poor widow with two sons, whose first husband died in battle against his house.  Virginity is an indispensable attribute in a queen so there can be no doubt as to the paternity of any progeny, but I was the mother of two boys.  In taking me as his wife, our king was not so much breaking with tradition as smashing it into kindling.

‘Tradition!’ he had scoffed.  ‘What is tradition?  It isn’t written in stone, it isn’t the Law.  Often it had its genesis in some bygone age where it was necessary or useful, but has long since become immaterial.  But because it is ‘tradition’, hallowed and sanctified by long use, no one nowadays questions its relevance.  Times are changing.  The world is entering a new and enlightened era.  We cannot cling to traditions that have outlived their usefulness.  And why,’ he demanded as if repeating arguments he had rehearsed on himself, ‘why must the king marry a virgin?  What is the king but a great landholder – the greatest, one would hope, but otherwise no different from men like your father?  Many landed men marry widows for their connections and hope to get heirs on them – your father included.’ 

August was hot, with brazen skies and still air.  If I stepped outside the house the heat felt like a physical blow. Finally came a letter.  Very circumspect.  He was coming south and expected to be in the area on the second day of September.  He stressed again the need for secrecy but said I could tell my mother, and left all the arrangements to us.  I read the letter half a dozen times.  No matter how hard I looked I could see no word of love or joy.  Never mind.  I had enough for both.  I held the letter to my breast and kissed it scores of times.

What was the matter with the residents of Grafton?  Were they blind?  Couldn’t they see the glow that surrounded me?  Couldn’t they see that when I walked my feet didn’t touch the ground?  How could they be unaware that they were in the presence of the most fortunate woman in the world?

……….

There never was such a strange royal wedding.  Instead of the imposing splendor of Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral, only a small chapel buried in the woods with tough vines climbing its walls.  Instead of the Archbishop of Canterbury in his jeweled miter and cape to celebrate the Mass, only an anonymous and insignificant parish priest in a stained cassock.  No boys’ choir to send their voices soaring into the vaulted roof in celebration of the blessed sacrament, only a single nervous boy, albeit with a sweet voice.  The groom was not attended by his friends, or surrounded by members of his family and the bride had only her mother and father present.  There were no cheerful crowds to accompany us on our way, only two carefully selected gentlewomen to act as witnesses.  No celebratory feast of epic proportions, attended by ambassadors from Europe, the nobility in their furs and coronets, the Mayor of London and his colleagues, only a simple wedding breakfast attended by six.

Myths grow around the lives of the illustrious like mistletoe winding around the trunk of a great tree, until the tree itself is strangled and eventually dies and only the strangling vine endures.  Many myths were told about us, particularly about our beginning.  They say we first met in Whittlebury forest, under an ancient oak tree where I waited to intercept him, to beg for justice for my disinherited sons.  For a groat or two the locals will point out the very tree: ‘Yes, that one.  That’s where she stood, holding her two boys by the hand.  And he came riding this way and was smitten by her beauty.’  A pretty story, is it not?  The truth, as is often the case, is more prosaic.  They also say we were wed on May Day.  It would have been a good choice, if only for the joyful connotations of that day.  But the truth is we were wed one golden day in September, when he was riding south after concluding the truce with the Scots.

Like mistletoe, myths are hard to kill once they have taken root.

Although we were up early, the servants were already astir banging about with pots and pans in the kitchen and preparing the table in the hall for breakfast.  It was the Feast of St. Gregory and my mother gave instructions that the household was to attend early Mass at our parish church of St. Mary the Virgin.  I wouldn’t be there, they were told, because of a slight indisposition and my parents would hear private devotions.  And if anyone suspected something was up, I doubt they came close to the truth.  It was too fantastic, wasn’t it?

In the woods on my parents’ estate of Grafton stood a small stone chapel called the Hermitage because there was a local legend that it was once occupied by a hermit.  In more recent times it had been used as a chantry chapel and then abandoned for many years.  My father tried to get the monastery to take over the care of the place but they didn’t want it.  My mother and I had swept out the dead leaves and cobwebs, laid a cloth and candlesticks on the altar, burned incense to get rid of the earthy smell, scraped fungus from the walls and loaded the place with flowers from her garden. 

The woods were dew-wet when I arrived at the chapel with my parents and the two gentlewomen, both named Alice, friends of my mother, who she had taken into her confidence.  The priest and the boy were already waiting outside the door.  There was no sign of my bridegroom.  I said nothing of my misgivings but I was tormented by doubts.  Surely he would not turn up.  Surely his proposal had been an impulse, or another ploy to bring about my surrender.  Surely by now he would have come to his senses and realized that marrying me would be a mistake of monumental proportions. 

Doubts assailed me until the very moment I saw a shiver of leaves, a bough lifting, and he emerged from the greenery leading a big roan horse, dressed in hunter green as if he would blend with the surrounding woods; only he didn’t.  He wasn’t the stuff of backgrounds, but stood out among the woody columns every bit as much as he did in his own court because of his great height and the breadth of his shoulders and the majesty that adorned his person like a rich but comfortable garment.  The priest’s watery eyes were popping from his head as if they were on stalks.  Until this moment, we had kept from him the identity of the bridegroom.