Revenge (4 page)

“We searched the field,” said Mauley, “and found Master Edward among the dead on the slope, west of Wemberton Brook. He fought and died like the brave man he was, sword in hand.”

He drew the broadsword he carried at his hip. “I took this from his dead hand,” he said sadly, wiping the dirty blade with the flat of his hand. “God grant that it avenges his killers.”

They buried Edward that evening, in the little church of All Saints at Cromford village two miles from the house, where James was chaplain. James stumbled and stammered through the service, drunk as usual and failing to hold back tears. Dame Anne glared furiously at him, her eyes red-rimmed but refusing to weep. The rest of the assembled family and household knew no such restraint, and wept and prayed fervently. None more so than Mary, who begged God for revenge on her father’s killers.

In the days after the funeral Dame Anne took to her private writing chamber, her Scriptorium as she called it. She left the care of Richard to Mary and the servants, so she could mourn her husband of thirty-two years in privacy and solitude. When she finally emerged, it was as a grand old lady, stately and severe, her well of tears run dry.

Mary diverted her own sorrow by tending to Richard and her youngest brother, Martin. The boy crept around like a mouse, baffled by the oppressive atmosphere that had descended on Heydon Court. He refused to listen when Mary tried to explain what had happened to his father, for he was of an age when boys think their fathers indestructible.

In the following weeks news trickled through to Heydon Court of how the world wore on outside the narrow confines of rural life.

The factions of York and Lancaster continued to tear at each other’s throats. Despite her defeat at Blore Heath and the death of so many loyal knights and men-at-arms, the Queen remained defiant. She still had two armies in the field, commanded by the Dukes of Buckingham and Somerset. Together they outnumbered the Yorkist host that had combined at Worcester, and from where the Duke of York sent a message to King Henry justifying his actions.

Poor slack-witted Harry the Sixth, whom in Mary’s opinion should have been a priest instead of a king, responded to York’s message by offering to pardon all those that had raised arms against him, save those that had fought at Blore Heath. York failed to reply, and so the Lancastrian host advanced to crush the rebellious Duke and his adherents.

On a chill Wednesday morning, a young squire arrive from Stafford, bearing news that all at Heydon Court had dreaded: war was renewed.

Dame Anne thanked the squire – he was a minor local gentleman’s son, and another admirer of her daughter’s – and sent him to the kitchen to be fed and watered. Then she turned to Mary.

“You will write a letter to our steward,” she snapped. “He has gone to the market at Lichfield, and I wish the letter to reach him before he departs.”

“Yes, mother,” Mary replied with a sigh, for writing letters was always a tedious and painstaking task. Both women went inside, to Dame Anne’s privy chamber, where Mary obediently sat and scratched out the letter that her mother dictated.

To our steward, John Tanner (she wrote), from Heydon Court,

I greet you right well, and pray you to get some crossbows and windlasses to bind them with, and quarrels, for we have those here that can shoot the longbow, but more that cannot, and must be armed. Also I would you to get two or three shortened pole-axes to keep with indoors, and as many sallets and jacks as you may.

We are sore afraid here that the Yorkists will gain the victory, and then every loyal subject’s house shall be open to the assault and pillage of traitors. We have made bars to bar the doors crosswise, and wickets at every corner of the house to shoot out from, with crossbows and handguns (also get two or three of these, with ball and powder, if you may), and holes have been made in the walls, at knee-height, for crossbows and handguns to be shot through.

I pray you that you will vouchsafe to bring a goodly fatted calf back from the market, and a brace of hens, and one lb. of almonds and one lb. of sugar… (etc)’

Mary saw herself as an Amazon, an English Jeanne D’Arc, and when she spoke of those who could not shoot the longbow and therefore must have crossbows and handguns instead, she meant the women of the household. None, in her estimation, were so feeble that they could not assist in the defence of the house.

And so the people of Heydon Court waited, in fear and anticipation, for the latest shift in the tide of war.

4.

Ludford
Bridge, Shropshire, 12
th
October 1459

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, surveyed his damp, exhausted and bedraggled army as it deployed on the waterlogged fields west of the bridge over the Teme.

He had taken care to fortify his position, and his men had spent hours digging a deep ditch, lined with wagons, sharpened stakes and artillery. The guns were placed on rising ground that gently fell away to the west, giving them a good field of fire. York fondly imagined the unsuspecting Lancastrian vanguard marching from that direction, unaware of the massed cannon-fire that would blow them to pieces before they came anywhere near his lines.

Sadly, this was unlikely. Royalist scouts had been spotted surveying the Yorkist position. King Henry would be informed of the bristling redoubt his enemies had constructed.

The King was said to be riding at the head of his troops in full harness of plate and mail, as though he were his father of famous memory, rather than the miserable, uninspiring, half-mad nonentity who had misruled England for so many years.

Richard glared accusingly at the sky. It was raining. It was always bloody raining. It had been raining non-stop since the end of September, when his ally Salisbury defeated the Lancastrians at Blore Heath. That victory had done nothing to discourage the Queen and her cronies, the Dukes of Buckingham and Somerset. They had combined their armies, somehow put some steel into the King’s wilting spine, and were now advancing to destroy the Yorkists.

York had declined battle at Worcester and retreated east, all the way through Kidderminster, Ledbury and Leominster in the pissing rain, heading for his stronghold at Ludlow. For reasons of pride rather than confidence he had decided to stop running and make a stand here, in the gently rolling countryside next to Ludford Bridge.

“The men look hungry,” remarked his companion, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, looking annoyingly full of youth and vigour.

“Of course they look hungry,” York retorted. “They’ve been force-marched through constant rain for the past three days, without sleep or proper rations. They must be bloody starving.”

“That’s not what I meant,” said Warwick with a smile, displaying strong white teeth. The young earl always exuded confidence, in himself and the men around him, and laughed off any prospect of defeat.

York scowled at him.
This smirking paladin has never known defeat
, he thought.
The champion of St Albans, Constable of Calais…everything has come easily to him. Too easily. He has yet to learn how quickly fortune’s wheel can spin the other way.

“Hungry to fight, are they?” he growled. “Don’t be so certain. Our scouts inform me that King Henry himself is in the van of the royal host. In full harness, with a sword girt about his middle. Harry the Fifth to the life.”

He derived satisfaction from the flicker on uncertainty on Warwick’s face. “He has left it rather late to start playing the warrior king,” the younger man muttered, scratching his unshaven cheek. “What if you or I encountered him in the thick of a mêlée? Could you strike at God’s anointed?”

York hesitated. “Maybe not,” he admitted, “and most of our common men would rather cut off their sword-hands than harm His Majesty. To fight against Buckingham or Somerset is one thing, but the King himself…”

He went back to studying the land to the west. Somewhere over there, advancing along the road to Ludlow, was the King’s army. Parts of the road had been flooded, but still the Lancastrians advanced remorselessly, determined to run their foe to earth.

York did some swift mental calculation. The results were not encouraging. He had some eight thousand men, made up of his own retinues, those of his two sons Edward and Edmund, the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, and two lesser barons. There should have been more, but York’s ally Lord Herbert had failed to bring up his promised reinforcements from Wales.

The Lancastrians, according to the dire reports of the Yorkist scouts, numbered over twice that many. Most of the great peers of England had rallied to the King’s banner, including the Dukes of Buckingham, Somerset and Exeter, the Earls of Shrewsbury, Devon and Wiltshire, and others. All with their fee’d and liveried retainers, as well as masses of conscripts and enthused volunteers.

“Take heart, lord,” said Warwick, who seemed determined to remain cheerful. “The enemy may have the numbers, but we have the men of Calais.”

York rubbed his face, considering. The rain pattered on his harness, trickling into the joints and aggravating the rheumatism in his limbs. At forty-eight he was no longer young, and a life of almost ceaseless military activity had taken its toll. His body suffered from the brunts and scrapes of combat, stretched tendons and torn muscles that never healed properly. On top of that, he was getting slow. One day, he knew, he would fail to duck or parry in time.

Irritating as Warwick was, the young nobleman spoke sense. The garrison of Calais was the only official English standing army, and their captain, Andrew Trollope, reckoned the most able soldier in the realm. They were Warwick’s men, in his capacity as Constable of Calais: six hundred well-armed and trained veterans, and more than a match for anything in the King’s army. If only there were a few more of them.

York looked at his banners drooping in the rain, so many coloured rags hanging wetly off crooked poles, and sighed. Somehow, in his bid to oust the Queen’s party, reform the failing government and become the dominant power in England, he had lost the initiative. Now God had brought him to this miserable pass.

“I’m away to supper,” he said, turning his horse. “Keep watch here, and send word when the King’s banners are sighted.”

Warwick saluted, rather too ostentatiously for York’s liking, and remained at his post while the Duke rode off in search of food and warmth.

York was ensconced in his tent, devouring the remains of an overcooked capon in the company of his sons, when Warwick’s father, the Earl of Salisbury, interrupted their meal.

“The royalist van is sighted, lord,” he said, poking his head through the tent-flap, his ageing, crumpled features dripping wet and pale with consternation. “They have halted a mile beyond the redoubt, and are waiting for the rest of their host to come up.”

“We must attack at once!” cried Edward, his harness clanking as he shot to his feet, upsetting the table. He was a muscular fair-haired giant, just seventeen, and a clear head taller than his father.“Scatter their vanguard to the winds, and then fall on and smash the main body.”

His younger brother Edmund clapped his hands in approval. He was more like their father in appearance, dark-haired and rather short, but just as belligerent as his sibling. He hero-worshipped Edward and followed him about like a devoted puppy.

York swiftly doused their enthusiasm. “So you two master tacticians would abandon our redoubt,” he said, “and throw away our strength, such as it is, against an enemy superior in numbers and arms, who our men are reluctant to fight. The King is with them, remember?”

His sons looked crestfallen, like a couple of schoolboys who had tried and failed to impress their teacher.

York turned his attention to Salisbury. “We will hold fast here,” he said, rising and snatching up his helm from the table, “and let the enemy have a taste of shot while they dither in the meadows. Order the artillery to open fire.”

Salisbury glanced outside. “The rain has slackened off a bit,” he said doubtfully, “but our powder may still be affected.”

“Well, give the order anyway!” York shouted in exasperation. “Create a bit of smoke, anything to give them pause! God’s death, must I light the fuses myself?”

Chastened, Salisbury hurried away to the guns. Motioning at his sons to follow, York buckled on his helm and strode out of the tent.

The few Yorkist guns that could be persuaded to fire discharged a random and ill-coordinated barrage into the gathering dusk. Most of their shots flew hopelessly wide or short of the Lancastrian lines.

York glumly watched the futile cannonade, and the steady flow of Lancastrian troops and banners coming up the road to deploy on the rain-swept meadows west of his position.

“They are in no hurry,” remarked Warwick. He had joined York, Salisbury and York’s two sons on a little hillock at a safe distance behind a gun emplacement.

The Earl seemed fascinated by the working of the gun, a long smooth-barrelled piece called a serpentine. The three crewmen, mindful of being observed by so many great lords, were industriously washing it out with a mixture of water and vinegar before loading.

“Why should they be?” replied Salisbury. “They can eat us up at any time. Look at their numbers!”

“None of that,” snapped York, though he privately shared the old soldier’s opinion. “They may outnumber us, but what do they have for leaders? A madman who has never been proved in battle, the scheming French bitch he married in an evil hour, and Buckingham and Somerset. Do any of you fear those two gentlemen?”