Red Rose, White Rose (53 page)

Hilda said nothing immediately but took my hand and led me to a mounting block set against the side wall of the bastle. We sat down on its steps side by side, gazing out across the barmkin at the view of the dale. Our backs were against the still-warm stone and the sun was setting below the ridge of the high moor, spraying the sky with wisps of pink cloud. The hillsides were patched with russet-coloured bracken and dotted with boulders that had long ago lost their hold on the steep crags higher up. As always, the beck behind us sang its gurgling tune as it tumbled over the rocks in the Red Gill.

I thought she was going to ask me how I could leave this place, which was so beautiful, whether in snowfall, sunshine or sunset, but she did not. Instead she posed different questions altogether. ‘Do we want our children to be yeoman farmers or gentlefolk, Cuddy? Should they learn how to shear sheep and make cheese or wield a sword and run a household? At the moment they are going to be neither cheese-maker nor sword-wielder.’

I turned to her with knitted brows. ‘I thought you wanted them to put down roots in the north-country,’ I said.

‘We can do both,’ she answered. ‘Cicely would take me back into her service and Aiden could become a page. You have more years to give in her service too and Marie could make a good marriage. It is very likely that Cicely is going to be queen, Cuthbert! We would be mad to turn our backs on such an opportunity for our children.’

‘Are you saying that we should
all
go to London?’

‘I am saying that we should all follow Cicely, wherever that takes us. We can come back to Red Gill from time to time and your nephew will run it perfectly meanwhile, with a little more help.’ She made an expansive gesture. ‘This dale will not go away. It will always be here.’

I thought of myself at Aiden’s age, being taken from Coverdale into the princely household at Raby. There had been so much to learn and so many wonders to see and hear. I should not deprive my son of the same opportunity that my father had given me. And Marie was the daughter and granddaughter of knights. She should marry into her own class. Hilda was right. If Cicely called me we should all go.

I planted a kiss on her lips and tweaked the peak of her housewife’s coif. ‘You will have to look out your finery, my lady,’ I said. ‘And I will have to get a shave and a hair cut.’

Two weeks later, a courier wearing the York crest brought a package. Cicely must have gathered her London household again at Baynard’s Castle I thought as I tore at the falcon and fetterlock seal. Something heavy fell into the palm of my hand. It was the white rose brooch she had unpinned from my hat on our last night at Ludlow. Her message read:

From Cicely, Duchess of York to Sir Cuthbert of Middleham, greetings.

The Wheel of Fortune has turned, my faithful brother. Edward is with me in London and Richard is on the way from Ireland. He has asked me to meet him at Hereford in the middle of September. We will travel together in procession to Westminster, where a Parliament has been summoned and where he says he will claim the throne. I need you with me, Cuddy, and Hilda too, if she will come. Send me your answer by return and pin this brooch again to your hat. Wear it with pride. By God’s good grace, when we meet again the House of York will be in its rightful place at last.

Take care on the journey. Many still wear the red rose.

Your loving sister,

Cicely

PS You may not have heard that sadly our little Ursula died during our imprisonment at Maxstoke Castle. We took her for burial beside Henry, William and John at Fotheringhay. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.

Written at Baynard’s Castle, London, this day August
24th 1460.

Westminster Palace, London, October to December 1460

Cicely

I
t was very strange to be living in the royal apartments at Westminster, almost like playing in a masque. At any moment I expected someone to come and take away my costume and jewellery and tell me that the entertainment was over; and that was still perfectly possible.

We had ridden in a glorious procession to London surrounded by hundreds of liveried men-at-arms and a phalanx of York knights with the white rose prominent on their banners. Richard had provided a splendid litter for me, like a great gilded tester bed slung between four pairs of white horses and hung with blue velvet curtains. He rode ahead of it in full armour on a dapple-grey charger with red and gold trappings, the great sword of state borne before him as if he had already been crowned. I told him how I much preferred to ride on a horse and that it was unlucky to assume the crown before the coronation but, as so often in those days, he was in no mood to listen. His belief in the power of pomp and show drove him on remorselessly. He had festered in the Dublin Pale and on his Ulster estates for nearly a year, receiving a constant flow of information from his spy network in England and straining at the invisible fetters that kept him in Ireland. Being attainted and put under sentence of death for treachery had been the last straw. He no longer wanted simply to reorganize the government of England and reclaim his lands and revenues. He no longer saw it as his duty to rule but as his right. He wanted to rid the country of its useless king and poisonous queen.

‘Henry’s grandfather was driven to take the throne by King Richard’s ill-judgment and now the tables have turned,’ he had declared when he explained his intentions to me before we left Hereford. ‘The Beaufort claim has always been blighted by the stain of bastardy and Henry’s reign has been ruined by weak leadership, incompetence and female interference. I have always had the better claim and will make a better ruler. It has been proved time and again. Moreover I have defeated him in battle. I am king both by right and conquest.’

I bit back the urge to point out that it was not Richard but Dick and Edward who had defeated King Henry’s army because I agreed that his claim to the throne was better. Through both his mother and his father his lineage ran direct from King Edward the Third, which was more than could be said for Henry who, even though his father had been king before him, might be said to have a more direct claim on the French throne than on the English one through his de Valois mother. Besides, I was not averse to becoming Queen of England. Neville ambition coursed in my blood. Short of being admitted to the gates of Heaven, no man or woman ever reached higher than the throne. I am not sure that even my aspiring father ever envisaged that for me.

I was more than delighted that Cuthbert and Hilda were willing to join me at Baynard’s and had the York steward arrange accommodation for them and a place for their son as a page in his own house. I always preferred to keep ladies close to me whom I knew I could trust and, having shared my childhood, Hilda had always been foremost in that role. For his part Cuthbert, ever the faithful knight and brother, also served me well as a conduit of affairs in Richard’s inner court.

It was Edmund who described to me the sequence of events on the tenth of October when his father walked into the Parliament to claim the throne. During the year since that ignominious midnight departure from Ludlow, Edmund had matured very much in the image of his father. He had not yet quite reached my height but when we conversed his flecked green eyes met my gaze with refreshing candour and he expressed himself with clarity and brevity, uncomplicated by political nuance as Edward’s remarks often were now, reflecting his cousin Dick’s influence, I surmised. In addition I noticed that in his father’s presence Edmund was was usually to be found standing quietly at his shoulder and they frequently exchanged hushed confidences. Even when Edward was also present it was to Edmund that Richard turned for a small service or confirmation of a fact. Officially he was still an underage squire but he was also playing his role as Earl of Rutland, his father’s aide and confidant, with increasing skill.

He came back alone from Westminster Hall looking dejected, bending his knee before my chair and casting a frown at the companions gathered around me. ‘My lord father sent me to you,’ he said. ‘May I speak privately with your grace?’

As soon as we were alone he pulled up a stool beside me and leaned close. ‘I hope it will not upset you too much, my lady mother, if I tell you that my father was not acclaimed king today as he expected to be. I fear he overestimated his position, even among those lords who are allied to York.’

I had more or less anticipated this news, partly because of the gloomy expression on Edmond’s face and partly because I had never been as optimistic as Richard that his fellow peers would easily rid themselves of their anointed monarch, ineffective and hag-ridden though he might be.

I folded my hands in my lap and nodded. ‘Tell me exactly what took place, Edmund.’

His account was solemn and meticulous. ‘We rode round to the Great Hall of Westminster; the streets were very quiet, as if London was empty. There were eight of us in my lord father’s retinue and we dismounted and walked into the building in procession, my father preceded by his bearer carrying the great sword of state. To our surprise the hall was empty except for several ushers, one of whom told us that the two Houses were sitting separately and directed us to the lords’ session in the Painted Chamber. King Henry was not there; the throne stood unoccupied on a dais at one end of the room but the lords present were seated around a long table, including my uncle of Salisbury and our cousin of Warwick. Some of the Lancastrian earls were absent; Exeter, Northumberland, Devon, Somerset.’

‘I am glad Exeter was not there,’ I remarked as he paused to draw breath.

‘They say he is in Scotland with the queen, trying to raise an army,’ Edmund commented. ‘I was surprised to see Edward there. I thought he would be considered under age for parliament. Anyway, my lord father did not wait to be greeted. He bowed to the assembly then marched straight past the table. Lord Bourchier, who had been speaking, fell silent and they all watched my father walk up to the dais, mount the steps and put his hand on the arm of the throne, as if to take his seat. Then he turned and waited to be encouraged to do so, to be acclaimed king, but no voice was raised. Even Edward did not speak, although I saw him open his mouth as if to do so then close it again. He looked surprised but not nearly as surprised as our father who nevertheless declared in a loud voice that he claimed the throne as the heir of King Richard the Second. Then the Archbishop of Canterbury stood up and asked him if he would like to see the king. My father looked furious and said – these are his exact words I think – “There is no one in the realm who should more fitly come to me than I to him.”’

Edmund gazed at me curiously. ‘What do you think, lady mother? Did he do the right thing?’

I sighed and shook my head. ‘I do not know, my son. As we rode through the border towns, all the Welsh marcher lords were encouraging him to claim the throne but the nobles think very differently here in London. It is a solemn and serious matter to dethrone an anointed king to whom you have knelt and sworn allegiance. It is an apostasy which can reverberate down through the hierarchy, perhaps encouraging petty vassals to disassociate themselves from their overlords. What do you think, Edmund?’

He sucked his teeth pensively, then took a deep breath and said something which touched and astonished me. ‘I think my lord father has suffered too much rejection. For years he has served the crown with skill and honour and been cheated of his dues by corrupt officials; he has suffered the torture of being attainted and discarded like a worthless rag and yet he is the noblest and the worthiest man in the kingdom. Now his closest allies, his brother-in-law and nephew, even his son and heir, have failed to speak up for him. If I had been a member of the House of Lords today, even if I had stood alone, I would have hailed him as my king.’

My eyes filled with tears as I gazed on his earnest face. I reached out, took both his hands in mine and raised them to my lips. ‘Bravo, Edmund,’ I said huskily. ‘No man has a truer or more loyal son than you are to your father.’