Rebellion (7 page)

The queen chose not to mention Calais.

‘It is a pity you tried to land near
Alnwick,' he said. ‘The garrison will have notified the Earl of Warwick by now – they
have some kind of courier system that goes at speed. And the beacons, of course.'

She felt irritated by his tone. ‘We are not
defeated yet,' she said. ‘Berwick is only twenty miles off – we could ride there
today.'

‘You should not travel through open
country,' he said. ‘Or through any towns. There are scouts on the roads – spies in the
streets. You could sail there, perhaps?'

But the queen was not ready to board a ship
again. ‘We will ride under cover of night,' she said. ‘And you must send out your own
scouts – in case any of my ships return.'

‘I will do that, my lady,' he said. She did
not like his resignation.

‘And prepare your own men,' she said,
‘because I will return soon – with all my lords and their men. To retake my northern
castles.'

It was after midnight when they arrived.
Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, the Duke of Exeter, Lord Roos and many others rode out
to meet them, carrying torches. She could tell they were overjoyed to see her.

But her husband was not there.

‘His majesty has not been well,' Jasper
said. ‘He will recover now you are here.'

After all the greetings and reconciliations,
the queen was taken to his room. He was not in bed, as she'd feared, but sitting in a
chair, on pillows. When he saw her, a look of tremulous joy spread across his face.

‘It is really you,' he said, his face full
of a wary delight as she approached. She knew at once that he was wondering whether or
not she was real. He clasped her hands and would not let her kneel.

‘You have been away so long!' he said. It
was seven months since she had seen him, and there was an obvious change. His hair was
entirely white, and lank, his face thinner, drawn about the mouth so that his teeth
seemed longer. His lips were those of an old person though he was not yet forty-two.
Before all the assembled company he touched her face, her hair. She allowed him to kiss
her with those wrinkled lips, once on either cheek. Then, sensing her withdrawal from
him, he turned to his son.

‘How you have grown!' he said, and attempted
to draw the boy
towards him with trembling hands. The young prince
glanced at his mother and she nodded, almost imperceptibly. But he would not be lifted
on to his father's knee; he pulled away.

‘I can do this!' he said, whipping round
with a rapier thrust towards the king, so that everyone present drew in their breath. No
one, not even the prince, could draw a sword against the king.

But the king had only tenderness for his
son. He raised the palm of his hand towards the sword point and gently guided it
away.

‘I see you have learned new skills,' he
said.

‘M'sieur de Brézé taught me – and there was
a storm – and our ship nearly sank – and we slept in a cave!'

She could only hope fervently that he would
say nothing more about that night.

But the king turned to de Brézé with a
smile. ‘I cannot thank you enough,' he said, and the queen saw the tears in his eyes,
and she was wrenched by the feeling that she always felt in her husband's presence;
somewhere between pity, anxiety and despair.

De Brézé responded with his usual gallantry,
saying that he would give his life over and again for the queen's cause.

Of course, he should have said the king's
cause. But the queen, passing over the moment lightly, said the king must be tired, as
they were all tired, and their son should sleep while she talked to the lords. The king
looked disappointed to be left, but acquiescent, as usual. So the little prince was
taken away while the queen went into a panelled chamber with the most intimate members
of her council.

‘What is the news from Scotland?' she asked
Jasper Tudor. ‘Will they send aid?'

Jasper replied that the new king of
Scotland, being only ten years old, did what his mother told him. The regency council
was split between the old lords and the new, and the new ones looked to Mary of Guelders
for everything, while the old stood with Bishop Kennedy. So the Scottish court was
distracted with its own quarrels. They had to hope that Mary of Guelders would
uphold her former promises, despite her pledge to the Earl of
Warwick.

‘I will go to see her,' said the queen.

‘We should not wait for the Scots,' said the
Duke of Somerset. ‘Whatever they offer will not be enough. We should move swiftly,
before Warwick arrives.'

The queen did not look at him. ‘How many men
are here?' she said to Lord Roos, and he said there were perhaps four or five hundred.
He was of the opinion that they should wait for a week at least. He believed the Earl of
Angus was on his way to join them with his men.

And Dr Morton said that if the Scottish
queen thought King Henry was finally leaving she would be more generous with money and
supplies.

‘Warwick will already be advancing north,'
said the Duke of Somerset. ‘While we wait he will reinforce all his garrisons.'

‘But the Yorkists will do our work for us,'
said Dr Morton. ‘As soon as they send out their summons, loyal Lancastrians everywhere
will come as fast as they can to support the true king.'

Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, snorted.
‘Much of our support is on the south coast,' he said. ‘We will have to wait all winter
for them to arrive.'

The queen turned to him at last. ‘We have
many supporters throughout England,' she said. The duke looked a little startled at her
tone.

‘Surely, my lady,' he said. ‘But a great
part of it is in the far south – if you ask me, I would say that it is not practical to
wait for all your supporters.'

‘I did not ask you,' she said and, at the
look of bafflement on his face, added, ‘From what I hear you have said quite enough
already.'

‘My lady?'

‘Have you not spoken to my cousin King Louis
about
my particular favour
?'

Instantly the atmosphere in
the room changed. Even the air seemed startled. The young duke looked horrified and
started to speak, but the queen faced him fully.

‘You have spoken of me to my cousin the King
of France, as if I was any peasant woman you have tumbled in a barn. Knowing how that
would make him see me – knowing how it would undermine my cause. Knowing that I could
not – nor would not – ever look at you that way.'

Two bright spots of colour burned on Henry
Beaufort's already highly coloured face. ‘Your majesty –' he stammered, ‘I –'

‘Perhaps you would like to speak openly,
here and now, of the favour I have shown you? Or perhaps you would prefer to explain
yourself to my husband, the king?'

The young duke looked around desperately for
support, but no one would meet his glance.

‘Your majesty,' he said, ‘if I have said –
or done – anything to your detriment – or the detriment of your cause – I am grieved
beyond measure. You cannot think –'

‘It is not what I think,' she said, ‘but
what the French king – and what your king – thinks that will matter. The damage has been
done. And we have work to do here. You may go.'

The Duke of Somerset stared at her,
appalled. He had never been dismissed from her presence before – he had always taken the
lead in councils of war. For a moment it looked as if he would say something they would
all regret, then he turned and walked rapidly from the room.

He left an atmosphere behind him, a palpable
tension. When the queen turned back to her advisors none of them would meet her gaze, as
if she had breached some unspoken rule. But the queen would not back down. Her chin
quivered a little with outrage as she moved swiftly on to the business of
provisions.

She was concerned by how low supplies were.
There was no chance at all of surviving the coming winter without further supplies. ‘We
should send out some men at once,' she said. But Lord
Roos said they
should not rely on raiding parties, and Jasper agreed. He said, as Tunstall had said,
that they did not want to alienate all the surrounding countrymen.

The queen nodded, her chin still quivering.
‘But what do you suggest?' she said.

In the end it was decided that the queen
would return to Scotland from Berwick. She would beg the Scottish queen one last time
for men, money, provisions. In the meantime, her lords would ride south to Bamburgh,
where more of her ships might have arrived. A sizeable contingent would depart for
Dunstanburgh, to take the fortress, and then move on to Alnwick, hopefully before the
Earl of Warwick could arrive. The king and the little prince would remain in Berwick –
the king was too ill to travel and the little prince had travelled enough. The queen
would travel with de Brézé.

The lords could decide between them who
would take charge of the castles, but she thought that Jasper should take over from Sir
Richard Tunstall at Bamburgh, because she did not trust the defeated look in Tunstall's
eyes. And perhaps Lord Roos would take charge of Dunstanburgh.

Only Dr Morton ventured to ask about the
Duke of Somerset.

‘What about him?' she said. ‘He has caused
enough damage.'

But the doctor said she should not be so
hasty; she had no reason to doubt his loyalty. In fact, it was entirely possible that
his indiscretion might have helped.

‘
Helped?
' she said.

‘You know it was proposed to Edward of York
that he should marry the Queen of Scots,' Dr Morton said. ‘But our gallant duke may have
distracted her.'

Jasper said it was more likely to be Bishop
Kennedy who had thwarted that particular plan. But certainly he did not think that the
young duke was disloyal. ‘Just young,' he said.

The queen was too tired to argue. ‘Do as you
think,' she said. ‘I am not likely to speak to him again. I will set off early for
Scotland. And you will ride south, to retake the fortresses of the
north!'

In November 1462 Queen Margaret, with
a small army, came out of France into Scotland and, enjoying the aid of the King of
Scots, crossed the border into England and made sharp war.

Great Chronicle of London

There occurred sieges of castles in
Northumberland and various clashes on the Scottish borders …

Crowland Chronicle

My Lord of Warwick lies at the castle
of Warkworth and he rides daily to all these castles to oversee the sieges. If they
need victuals or anything else, he is ready to supply them. The king commanded my
Lord of Norfolk to send victuals and the ordnance from Newcastle to Warkworth Castle
to my Lord of Warwick, and so my Lord of Norfolk commanded Sir John Howard [and
several others] to escort the victuals and ordnance and so yesterday [10th December
1462] we were with my Lord of Warwick at Norfolk. The King lieth at Durham and my
Lord of Norfolk at Newcastle … no one can depart, unless, of course, they
steal away without permission, but if this were to be detected they would be sharply
punished …

Paston Letters

Some sieges took a long time; months, even
years. Warwick did not think these would. Already he had heard that the garrisons were
eating their horses. It had been reported from Dunstanburgh that Dr Morton, before
taking the first slice of his own horse, had said that
since Our Lord had changed
water into wine he would doubtlessly be capable of changing this poor meat into the
finest venison.

The Earl of Warwick had enjoyed this
comment. He always appreciated the diversions of wit under pressure. He had told his men
there would be no need to use their artillery, they just had to keep up the blockade.
The men grumbled at this, since it was the longer option. But Warwick had no intention
of using up his munitions, nor of causing lasting damage to good fortresses when they
might need them afterwards.