Rebellion (45 page)

She'd had to back away then, from the look
on his face.

It wasn't his fault; she'd been preparing
him for this moment his whole life. It was all he wanted. But she didn't want it. She
didn't want to let him go.

While he was hers she'd had hope, but he was
not hers now. He was married for one thing – he'd married Anne Neville before setting
sail. But his heart did not belong to his wife, or to his mother. It belonged to his
cause.

Now finally they'd seen land. The prince
would not move from his post while it was visible. And so she made her way over to him
one last time, clutching the rail.

He did not stiffen, exactly, but became more
contained. She told herself she would say nothing to make him retreat from her even
further; she just wanted to be with him as he approached his land. She stood with him as
they came nearer to the rocky coast.

She did not know why her heart did not lift
at the sight of that shore. Perhaps it was the memory of other landings, other defeats.
Or of Pierre de Brézé.

It was not where they had planned to arrive;
in fact, no one was sure where it was. But as soon as they landed they would send
messages to the lords who supported them – Pembroke, Somerset, Devon – and they would
come to meet them with their men. The other ships had been swept further along the
coast, but it was hoped that they too would rejoin them. She should be glad that she did
not have to spend any more time on that wind-tossed ship.

‘It will not be long now,' she said. ‘You're
coming home.'

At the same time she wondered what that word
meant; England had never been home to her. But it was her son's kingdom.

He didn't answer at first, then he said, ‘I
wonder what they will think of me, the people of this land?'

‘They'll think you are their prince.'

‘They don't know me.'

‘They do know you,' she
said. ‘They know that you are their rightful king – that at last they will have a king
who will rule them as they should be ruled.'

That was what he wanted from her, hope and
reassurance, not fear and warnings. He wanted her to make him believe in himself. He
said, ‘But will they take me to their hearts?'

‘Of course they will.'

‘They did not take my father to their
hearts.'

‘The people loved your father,' she said.
‘Wicked men turned them against him.'

The Earl of Warwick
, she did not
say, since they would soon be joining with that earl. And she did not say either that it
was because his father was weak, unfit to be a king.

‘You will be a strong king,' she said, ‘and
the people will love you.'

It had come to this then: she was willing to
say only what he wanted to hear in order to be admitted into his heart. She would
silence that part of her that was filled with foreboding.

He would not want her to embrace him, but
she stood close enough to him to feel the heat from his young body passing into hers.
‘The people need you,' she said, ‘they need their king.'

He did not respond at first, then
unexpectedly he moved his hand so that it touched hers. She slipped her hand quickly
into his and felt a pang of joy as their fingers intertwined. They had not touched like
this for a long time.

But now they stood together, hand in hand,
facing the unknown shore.

Queen Margaret and Prince Edward her
son … landed at Weymouth on Easter Day and so by land they rode to Exeter and
there met with Edmund, Duke of Somerset, Lord John his brother, Courtenay, Earl of
Devon and many others. And on Easter Monday tidings were brought to them that King
Edward had won the field at Barnet and King Henry was put in the Tower again.

Warkworth's Chronicle

When she heard these things the
miserable woman swooned for fear, she was distraught, dismayed and tormented with
sorrow, she lamented the calamity of the time, the adversity of fortune, her own
toil and misery; she bewailed the unhappy end of King Henry which she believed
assuredly to be at hand …

Polydore Vergil

During the days of fierce debate that had
followed the queen's collapse Dr Morton had devised a plan. He persuaded her generals to
send a small contingent from Exeter to Shaftesbury and Salisbury, to convince the people
there that the main army was on the way.

In fact, the main army was on the road to
Glastonbury, via Taunton.

From Taunton they sent another party of men
to Yeovil, with
the false news that the queen's army was travelling to
Reading. These towns duly raised the alarm and sent messengers to their king.

They needed time, Dr Morton had said. Time
to recruit men, and time for Jasper to muster his army in Wales. If they could reach the
Severn before King Edward, their forces would combine with Jasper's and they would
outnumber the Yorkist host. He'd suggested this strategy skilfully, by inference and
implication, so that by the time it was adopted both the Duke of Somerset and the Earl
of Devon were convinced it was their idea.

Such was his way.

Now he rode with the queen to raise her
spirits, since she was still distressed. He encouraged her to have hope. All those peers
who had hated Warwick would rally to their cause now that he was gone.

‘They've not rallied to it before,' she
pointed out.

‘Not while Warwick was alive,' he replied.
‘It is better for us that he is out of the way. The nobles did not trust him. Some of
them hated him.'

The queen was silent, wondering how many of
them hated her.

But it was her husband she was asking them
to support, and her son. And in this respect at least the plan appeared to be working,
for almost all of Cornwall and Devon had risen to the prince's cause.

He rode ahead, with his Beaufort cousins. At
first the Duke of Somerset had sent riders ahead to stir the people up, but soon there
was no need. In each town they came to the streets were lined with people calling out
blessings to the prince, cheering him on.

The prince was delighted, of course. He rode
taller in the saddle, turning back on occasion to give her a smile of childlike joy. She
smiled back at him, how could she not? She had never seen him so happy.

She herself remained less
visible, knowing that the Yorkist king had branded her as a
Frenchwoman born and
mortal enemy to this our land.
She hung back, surrounded by a party of men. And
Dr Morton kept her company, soothing her despite her misgivings. They'd heard that
Edward had set off after them, taking the whole armoury of the Tower with him, as well
as Warwick's artillery that he'd captured at Barnet.

‘It will slow him down,' Dr Morton said.

But Edward had wasted no time. He'd sent
commissions of array to fifteen counties, including the ones they were passing
through.

‘But he is not here,' said the doctor, ‘and
the prince is. Whose army are they joining?'

He spoke with a calm assurance and the queen
allowed herself to be comforted. He was not impressive to look at, small and balding. He
was somewhat older than she was, she guessed, though in fact it was difficult to guess
his age. As long as she'd known him he'd been losing his hair, but he had pink cheeks
and very bright eyes. In profile his face came nearly to a point.

She'd known him for more than fifteen years
yet knew little about him. She suspected that he was of humble origin; one of the new
men of this age who rose according to ability rather than blood. He'd been educated at
Cerne Abbey, in which they'd stayed, by the Black Monks of the Benedictine Order, then
at Oxford. In 1455 Archbishop Bourchier had recognized his ability and presented him at
court. Within two years he'd been appointed chancellor of the young prince's household,
then Lord Privy Seal. Yet he did not appear to be an ambitious man.

He had drafted the bill of attainder against
the Yorkists in 1459, a bill so controversial that others had refused, calling it
a
most vengeable labour.
He'd been captured at Towton and imprisoned in the
Tower, from where he had somehow escaped. He would not say how, whereas another man
might have boasted of it, presumably because it would implicate those who had aided him.
From
there he had joined the queen in France, and been with her on
successive excursions to Scotland, France and England.

He said nothing of these changes of fortune,
except that it had pleased God to send him many adventures, for which he had endeavoured
to be grateful. He didn't look like an adventurer, or a warrior, yet he had survived. He
gave nothing away, spoke softly, used speech to parry and thrust. And yet she trusted
him, and allowed him to mend her spirits. And his plan was working since each day their
army grew. Even from high ground it was no longer possible to tell where the long line
of massed troops ended.

The night they reached Glastonbury they lit
their fires and cooked whatever they had poached or found. The air smelled of smoke and
roasted meat. The queen stepped out of her tent. The darkness was suffused by an orange
glow from so many fires. She lifted her eyes beyond it to where the stars hung like tiny
beacons in the night sky. A discordant singing rose; it was possible to imagine an
angelic chorus joining in.

Impossible to imagine any God who would
desert them, or fail to protect her son.

They passed through Glastonbury to Wells and
even when the untrained people who had joined them ran riot through the town, sacking
the bishop's palace and breaking open the prison, she was not distressed. For the bishop
was their enemy and the prisoners might remain free as long as they joined their army.
As for the rioting and looting, she could not afford to pay them so they would have to
take what they could. ‘An army must eat,' she said.

And she smiled at Dr Morton, and he at her,
and they pressed on with the next part of their plan. Which was to send a small
contingent from Wells to Bruton to spread the rumour that their army was heading towards
Oxfordshire, then London.

To delude the Yorkist king.

‘God damn and blast them to hell,' the king
said, but softly, having turned away. He didn't think any of his councillors had
heard.

And he had closed his eyes. Hopefully they
would think he was praying.

He was not praying. He was hoping to awaken
in himself some feral instinct such as birds or wolves have when tracking prey.

It had taken him five days to reach
Gloucester, where his scouts had told him that the queen's army was approaching Bath and
was preparing for battle. Accordingly he had pitched camp outside Cirencester. But then
he'd learned that this was yet another ruse – they had actually turned towards
Bristol.

A good and strong-walled town where
they were greatly refreshed and relieved by such as were the king's rebels …
wherethrough they took new courage … and sent fore-riders to a town nine miles
from Bristol, called Sudbury, and appointed a ground for their field called Sudbury
Hill.

The Arrivall

Of course he'd followed them and sent
his scouts into the town. Where they'd met an advance party of Lancastrians and were
taken by surprise, having grown used to not finding them. The outcome was not good.

He'd given orders that the
wounded were to be seen to, the dead buried, and then had pitched his camp near the
slopes of Sudbury Hill while knowing in his heart that the enemy had gone their way. And
he was right. His spies had climbed the hill from where they could see for miles in
every direction, but there was no sign of the queen's army.

Which was huge by now, it was said, and yet
invisible, leaving no traces.