Red Rose, White Rose (40 page)

His mouth twisted in a wry one-sided smile. ‘It might be fairer to say we have had our wicked way with each other.’ He nuzzled me softly, sadly. ‘No, our love will die when we leave here because the world and the church will snatch it and kill it. We will return to our family enmities and we will remember that we are too closely related for cannon law. They say familiarity breeds contempt but in the case of our love it inevitably spells the end.’

‘You are right; the days – the hours – of our love are numbered but I will always trust you, John, remember that. Even if there is blood between our families I will trust you not to spill that of me and mine.’ Gazing into his candid grey eyes, I saw my own sorrow reflected back.

Baynard’s Castle, London & Ludlow Castle, 1454–1455

Cicely

I
waited at Baynard’s Castle for Richard to return from Westminster and his first council meeting as protector. Baynard’s was a towering fortress on the River Thames guarding the south-west corner of the London Wall and he had acquired it from the estate of the old Duke of Gloucester. It had been refurbished by the duke who had a reputation for opulent living and was known as ‘Good Duke Humphrey’ by Londoners but still it was draughty and uncomfortable. We lived there because access to Westminster was easy by boat and it was of a suitable size for Richard’s household and retinue. But I constantly longed to return to Fotheringhay.

The joys of the Red Gill bastle were becoming a distant memory overlain by extraordinary events and family and household matters demanding all my attention. Also, I tried to resist thinking of John. But as I gazed dolefully out over the river from a window in my grand solar at Baynard’s, I had a sudden recall of his tall, muscular frame and lean, passionate face and felt desire tug at my inmost self. We had been torn from our secret hideaway by Cuthbert who brought news both disastrous and astonishing. Firstly there had been a battle at a place called Castillion in Aquitaine which had not only forced the final withdrawal of English troops from France, apart from Calais, but had also resulted in the death of Richard’s old warrior-friend John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. The second piece of news however was strange in the extreme and had caused Richard to summon me to join him immediately at Ludlow.

News of the defeat at Castillion had reached King Henry at Clarendon Palace in Wiltshire, during a progress he was making to dispense justice around the country. So great had been his shock and despair that he had fallen into some kind of trance, from which he had not recovered. Physicians recorded that he could see and walk and eat but he did not speak and his gaze appeared empty and disconnected; they could offer no real diagnosis or cure. Meanwhile the queen’s confinement was imminent and this left the Duke of Somerset in complete control of the council.

One of Somerset’s first actions in the king’s name had been to order Dick of Warwick to withdraw from his wife’s extensive Despenser estates in South Glamorgan which Somerset claimed as part of his own wife’s inheritance. Both women were daughters of the old Earl of Warwick but by different mothers: as with the Neville feud, this was the cause of the problem.

Returning to Ludlow with Cuthbert I found Dick and Hal were there with Richard to discuss tactics against Somerset. Indeed, this summit at Ludlow resulted in a new pact between the three; now instead of being out on a limb, banished from court without support from his peers, Richard found himself in a position of some strength. He hoped he would soon be in a position to have Somerset arrested over his failure to defend France and his arbitrary control of the Great Council.

Then Queen Margaret gave birth to a son, baptised Edward with my sister Anne, Duchess of Buckingham, standing as godmother, and the status of the new prince was immediately thrown into question by renewed rumours that his sire was not the king but the Earl of Somerset, rumours compounded by the fact that King Henry was in no fit state to acknowledge the child, no matter how many times the baby was placed in his arms.

Somerset became the focus of protests in London, partly over the paternity rumour and partly because the over-taxed citizens blamed him for the kingdom’s expensive failures in France. Foreign wars were popular with the citizens when they brought plunder and glory but the general who spent all their taxes and then fled home in defeat faced violent dissent. At a special meeting of the council Somerset was committed to the Tower on a charge of treason brought by the Duke of Norfolk, Richard’s long-standing ally. Christmas was celebrated in a frenzy of plotting and scheming among the different factions, culminating in February with the queen demanding in a letter sent to the council that she be appointed regent for her stricken husband.

To a man the council vigorously rejected the idea of a female regent, especially a Frenchwoman, and made moves to recall parliament in order to establish a formal protectorate. A consensus gathered around Richard as the adult male with the best claim to the succession and therefore the best qualified to deputise for the crown. His appointment as Protector and Defender of the Realm was ratified on the third of April, but only after the baby prince had been invested with the cap, ring and stick of the Principality of Wales, confirming his official status as heir to the throne. This order of events had been to reassure the queen of her son’s position and to pacify her fury at being denied the regency.

So I awaited the return of my husband the Lord Protector of England. Through the leaded glass of the window of the solar I saw his galley glide downriver from the Palace of Westminster and turn into the water gate at Baynard’s. True to his love of display, Richard sat amidships in an elevated gilt chair under a gold-tasselled canopy and was rowed by twenty oarsmen in York livery, their blades hatched in murrey and blue. Three standards were ducked as they passed under the gate arch – the white rose of York, the falcon and fetterlock and, to the fore, an escutcheon of the arms of the Dukedom of York, three gold lions on red in a silver border. I wondered how long it would be before Richard had the College of Heralds produce a coat of arms for the new Protector of England. Behind Richard’s galley there followed another, smaller craft, boasting only ten oarsmen and one standard displaying my brother Hal’s green spread-eagle.

Having no intention of being outshone by Richard’s flowing ermine-trimmed houppelande and gem-studded chaperon, I was dressed ready to perform my role as the Protector’s lady in a gown of brocaded blue silk with trailing sable-trimmed sleeves and a headdress of jewel-encrusted gold net set on a ducal coronet. Sadly Richard’s spectacular White Rose collar, which had been his proudest possession and a spectacular symbol of his investment in the future of the House of York, had had to be sold to meet our expenses. He had proved his administrative skills in Normandy and Dublin without being paid but it remained to be seen whether he would now have the chance to steer the kingdom onto what he called its ‘true course’ and recoup some of the debt owed to him by the crown at the same time.

For me it was a short walk from the privy apartments to the Great Receiving Chamber where friends and allies of York were gathered to hear the latest news. Richard, Hal and I arrived together, greeting each other on the steps of a dais covered in blue velvet and fitted with two gilded thrones. We did not take our seats however, until another chair had been placed for Hal beside ours. Then Richard raised his hand for silence.

‘For the peace and good rule of the realm it gives me great satisfaction to announce that I have today appointed my respected and renowned brother-in-law, Richard, Earl of Salisbury, as Chancellor of England. I hope you will all join me in pledging support for the good work I am certain he will do in restoring the Exchequer to a position of strength and good management.’

There was a stamping of feet and calls of congratulation and encouragement and Hal stood up and made a short speech of thanks and commitment. Richard then announced that other new appointments would be made to the council as soon as possible and that he would open the new session of parliament the following day. The three of us then made our way to Richard’s private chamber so that we could speak freely together. A chamberlain poured wine and was dismissed and we all relaxed into cushioned seats.

‘You look tired, my lord,’ I said, observing the dark shadows into which Richard’s usually bright green eyes had sunk. Since our reunion at Ludlow, he and I had returned to a working partnership, although I knew it would never be the warm and loving relationship we had enjoyed before. I could not deny him his conjugal rights and nor did I wish to but when I announced that my eleventh child would be born sometime in late June or early July, I worried that it might arrive a little early. I would never repent my secret interlude with John but I was acutely aware of the danger of giving birth to a child which Richard could not possibly have sired.

‘I would be exhausted,’ he acknowledged, ‘if I did not now have your brothers and nephews on my side.’ He raised his jewelled cup in salute to Hal. ‘I thank you heartily for agreeing to take the Great Seal, Salisbury. I have discovered that finding men to fill the highest offices in the land is not easy. Few are willing to expend their energies for the benefit of the realm when at any time the mat could be pulled unceremoniously from under their feet.’

Hal’s appointment was a controversial one because it was a post usually filled by a member of the Church hierarchy, so I was surprised that he had been offered, let alone accepted, the post of Chancellor.

‘It is rather disquieting,’ Hal agreed, taking a judicious sip from his cup. ‘Our brother Will was in the deputation that went to Windsor last week and he told me that King Henry’s stupor is still profound. Yet the doctors claim he could regain his intellectual processes at any moment.’

‘Or not at all,’ added Richard with no obvious sign of regret.

I had also heard Will’s account of that visit to Windsor. The carefully selected group of lords had been invited to attend the king at dinner time and had watched him consume a meal with agonizing slowness and a frighteningly vacant expression. He had appeared completely unaware of their presence and failed to respond to anything they said to him. It was after this unsettling audience that the council finally united behind the appointment of Richard as Protector.

‘England is lucky to have two men such as you at the helm of state,’ I remarked encouragingly. ‘God willing, her people will soon notice a return to order and the rule of law.’

The mention of Will had reminded me of his daughter Alys, who had kindly nursed little Anne through her traumatic abduction by Harry of Exeter. Sadly I had received no correspondence from Anne herself but Alys had visited me on her way back north to be married and reported that Anne was pregnant. Her baby was due two months after mine and I knew that there would be no chance of my being admitted to Ampthill even if I had been fit to travel there, so I could only rely on Alys’s assurance that there were pleasant women around her and a good midwife had been appointed. Her lying-in would be around the time of her sixteenth birthday and I prayed every day to St Margaret to grant her a trouble-free birth. At least she would be free of Harry’s company because he had been summoned before the council and committed to the Tower for failing to pay substantial fines imposed for occupying Ampthill and damaging countless other properties, a sentence which I heartily applauded. I could not quite bring myself to wish him dead but I certainly felt that the country would breathe easier, the longer the Fox was denied his freedom.

The first months of Richard’s protectorate brought a considerable slackening of political tension due to his rigorous application of the law to those lords who had been consistently flouting it, including the arraignment of Lord Egremont to answer for his violent raids on Hal’s Yorkshire holdings. However by Christmas the king showed signs of recovering his faculties; by the following February he and the queen were back at Westminster and Somerset had been released from the Tower. The protectorate was over; Richard services on the council were no longer required and he retreated once more to Ludlow. The Wheel of Fortune had turned again.

Meanwhile I had given birth to a baby girl, born late enough to leave me in no doubt that she was legitimately Richard’s. Sadly she was also sickly and fretful, requiring constant nursing from the moment of her arrival. As soon as she and I were strong enough, I took her off to the tender care of Anicia at Fotheringhay where she joined her toddler brother Dickon in the nursery. We called her Ursula, the Little Bear.

I cannot say that I was personally sorry to see the end of the protectorate, which had meant spending much time in London at draughty Baynard’s and away from the children but, of course, Richard and his affinity were furious and gathered at Ludlow for another strategy meeting in the middle of April. Sensing dangerous times ahead, I decided to join Richard and took all the younger children and their nurses and servants to Ludlow for safety.